Baywatch - Season 02, Episode 22 - Summer of '85

Another Baywatch review just a day later, it's quite unlike me. Yesterday when I was looking up Shauni's father name, I accidentally saw that my concerns were unfounded, she is in fact in season 3. This means I'm sure Eddie is as well. I'd better not spend too much time writing this one, I spent way too much time on here yesterday.

I'm adding this later, I did, in fact, spend hours on it again.

 Thoughts on the Title

With a title like 'Summer of '85' I thought it was going to be a flashback episode, how would that work though? Perhaps it would be focused around Ben, there's been an episode or two before with Ben flashbacks but they were only 'B' or 'C' plots. Ben is barely in the show though so I knew it was unlikely, he's never the focus. I'm glad though because who cares about Ben? I don't really know why he's even in the show and from accidentally seeing some pictures of season 3, he's still in it. To be fair, the reason why I don't care about him is most likely just because he doesn't get much screen time. He'd be more interesting if they'd built up the character. Evidently I don't think Ben shows up once in this episode.

Synopsis

Shauni and Eddie go to see a fortune teller who informs them that Eddie is going to meet his first true love, much to both of their dismay. Eddie is bothered by this but he doesn't believe in fortune telling anyway. Shauni is put out by the prediction and is jealous when Eddie seems interested in some other woman, however this turns into concern for Eddie's safely when she returns to the fortune teller to find out more. She then goes on to investigate and warn Eddie.

Thoughts on Summer of '85

Here we have the final episode of season 2 and it doesn't feel like a finale at all. I thought they were going to go for an action packed disaster type thing like they did at the end of season 1, oh boy, that feels like it was long ago now. Not only is this a rare one plot only shindig but it's also the second Eddie and Shauni one in a row, I think this is the first time it's happened, ever. Eddie gets more time in the lime light than in 'Game of Chance' though, so that part is reversed.

My guess is that Summer of '85 isn't a popular episode but I quite liked it, however my favourite characters are Eddie and Shauni so of course I'm going to like it. However they'd have a run for their money if Craig Pomeroy was still on the show. I realised that the episode was pretty good when I paused to check my phone, only to find that there was only ten minutes left. Unlike yesterday. I'm going to make some bullet points;

- They do something sort of clever - The fortune teller tells us that Eddie is going to meet his first true love, which leads us to believe that he doesn't love Shauni and that they'll split up. They also seem to believe this. The thing is, Eddie then does meet his first true love, that being Rosalind from seven years ago. You get it? Eddie's first true love was in the past, she was only the first.

- Eddie kisses Rosalind on the lips, it's just a peck but I feel like this doesn't fit with Eddie's character being devoted to Shauni. I don't think the writers intended it to be cheating but it did come off as that.

- At the end, Eddie says to Rosalind "The only thing I kept from that summer was my baseball". This is most likely a sly way of telling us that he lost his virginity to her. It's very subtle and not like Baywatch at all, my guess is that they sneaked it in. Oh yes did I forget to mention that? They sleep together and Rosalind is an older woman. This fact is handled very well and very maturely, better than TV shows would handle it today.

- Some of the acting in this episode is a bit dodgy, especially the guy playing as young Eddie. Rosalind also is a bit bad. You might be thinking that all Baywatch acting is bad but it's usually just fine.

- Speaking of "young Eddie", that actor didn't look much like Eddie, he actually looked a little taller.

- Mitch doesn't appear at all, this is unusual. His son doesn't either but that's not as uncommon.

- This may devalue this episode by pointing it out but... it's a bit like 'If Looks Could Kill' from earlier on in the season. However it involves different characters and the Femme fatale turns out to be innocent. Also in that old one we knew the Femme fatale was a murderer from the start.

Not Really About This Episode, More About Harvey and the End of His Run

- For some reason Harvey goes to the fortune teller with Shauni later on, the fortune teller randomly tells him that 2 is an unlucky number for him. I thought this was going to lead to Harvey's death, since this is the last time he's in the show. But no, he slips and breaks two ribs in the small action sequence at the end, he's perfectly fine, of course. This means I'm sure they'll drop some random line in season 3 explaining why Harvey left, it'll just be something like "He got a better job somewhere else". Harvey is barely in this episode so the breaking his ribs thing seemed totally pointless.

- Speaking of Harvey, the episode starts with him watching some sexy woman on the beach. His proclivity for women was a trait that only came up a few times in his run even though I felt that they originally wanted to lean into it more. I remember the only time I thought Harvey was going to be interesting was early on, where they painted him as being unable to get a girlfriend. He was flirty but no one was ever interested. He seemed kind of sad and lonely, but this was only a small part of a single episode and they never went back to it. R.I.P Harvey, I'll miss you... kinda. The season 1 characters we lost were a bigger hit to me.

And that's the end of my review! Wow.

Baywatch - Season 02, Episode 21 - Game of Chance

Firstly, Some Random Thoughts on Baywatch

- The Baywatch.fandom.com site is often disappointing with how little it has on it, also the episodes section is in alphabetical order, not number order, which is silly. All of this is further evidence of how very few care about this show, which is understandable. I'm just weird.

Game of Chance

What is this, an actual review?! Shocking! I'm going to do it, finally.

Game of Chance is the twenty first episode of season 2, so one away from the end of the season. I was a little more lax with avoiding spoilers back when I started watching Baywatch a month or two ago, so I did see that at least two of main characters, namely Eddie and Shauni, leave around this time. I read that they leave in season 3 but I can't remember if they meant at the end of season 3 or at the beginning. So there is a chance that after 'Game of Chance', I only get to see my favourite characters one more time. I'm pretty sure they are also in season 3, though. That fact still irks me though, I'm not sure if I'll still enjoy the show afterwards. Not just because of their departure but because it'll mean almost all season 1's cast will be gone by then. Anyway, let's talk about the actual episode.

The Review

We start with the 'B' plot which focuses on Mitch and Harvey teaming up, a rare thing in the show and possibly the only time it happened. It's almost definitely the last, since Harvey leaves the show in the next episode. I've mostly avoided looking up spoilers for this show but after Harvey barely showed up in his debut season, I looked it up. Since I guessed he wouldn't be in it for long and decided I wouldn't feel sad seeing him go. Now don't get me wrong, I don't dislike him, he's just middle of the road. Harvey is a one note character - He's the comic relief guy.

Mitch comes to get Harvey off a boat where he's gambling lots of money on a card game, why, you may ask. Harvey was half an hour late for his shift, you see. Harvey convinces Mitch to let him finish his last game since he's going to win big, he does but some dude in a hockey mask and a shotgun turns up and robs them all. Harvey later references Jason from the Friday the 13th movies when describing the criminal.

Mitch and Harvey investigate the crime for rest of their story, it's pretty good but it's a short and simple one. I think most episodes start off with the 'A' plot but this turns out to be the shorter 'B' plot for Game of Chance, despite it being what the title is referring to. It ends with a pretty good chase sequence which features a car boat hybrid, I feel like this story almost focuses around this vehicle because of how cool it is. Which I'm alright with. This plot ends the episode with a reference to Knight Rider which I was pleasantly surprised with. In case you don't know, Mitch is played by the actor who starred in Knight Rider, another very popular, very old show.

In classic Ben fashion, he is in one scene for a few seconds and that's it. Harvey's problems with money was a trait of his that was brought up early in the season and then rarely mentioned again.

The 'A' plot is all about Shauni and Eddie even though it's not as action orientated as the other one. Basically it's about Shauni's father, Robert McClain, not accepting Eddie, he wants his daughter to be with a man who's got a better job. By the end of it, Eddie, of course, rescues Shauni's sister from drowning. The ever terrifying, most dangerous villain in Baywatch is water, by the way. This is one of the swimming pool episodes, so keeping away the beach won't help.

It's surprising that Robert felt this way, since there was an earlier episode where he felt the same way about Shauni, he wanted her to get a job he felt was better than life guarding. In fact I think that was the first episode he was in. Shauni rescues someone in that older episode and Robert see's that being a life guard is important because... ya know, you save lives. Come to think of it, the premises of these episodes are very similar, they are executed differently though, in their defence. There is one difference though - Robert still doesn't like Eddie at the end, which was odd. Because of this, Shauni moves out to go live with Eddie. Perhaps episode orders were moved around a bit because there's at least one earlier episode where Shauni says she's already living with Eddie.

Almost all of this plot takes place at Shauni's parents fancy house, other parts aren't important to the story and I think they're all montages. I like them but it's been a while since I've seen montages in Baywatch that pretty much have nothing to do with the story. They could be taken out and you'd still understand what's going on, this plot would probably be the same length as the 'B' one if they were deleted. I'm just pointing that out, I'm not saying that they should have been.

The most random, completely unattached montage is Shauni riding a horse on the beach, sometimes shes even laying backwards on it. The other montage is Shauni and her sister shopping for clothes, Shauni even looks at the camera one time which I don't think I've seen since a fantasy scene way back in season 1. These parts of the episodes are great, Shauni probably gets the most screen time so I'd say this is essentially a Shauni episode. A rarity. I guess these montages could be filler but at the time, the creators of this show probably were always looking for excuses to shoot Erika Eleniak looking gorgeous. Every time I see montages though, I wonder what the original music for them was. I'm watching the remasters which changed some of the music.

Overall this was a good episode, not the best but pretty good, having it focus on Eddie and Shauni is a plus for me. There's been quite a few good episodes in a row here.

Catch up and Baywatch

Intro

I plan on not spending too much time on this post but I'll probably end up writing loads, as usual. I also haven't thought this through at all, so it might be even more random than usual. I also would like to start writing on here more often, so not taking too much time on this entry would be a good idea. What I mean is that I should pass myself.

I probably say something like this in almost every entry - Wow, it's been seven months since my past post already?! That's crazy. I'd like to read over the last post at some point, I did skim the titles, looks like I mention Dead by Daylight. I've still been playing it but for the last month or so, not so much. I kinda feel like it would be good if I almost completely stop playing it and, like I think I mentioned in my last post, start playing other games instead. Namely retro comes. I see I mentioned Road Rash 2 last time, I'd forgotten about that. Some months ago I did play some Gremlins 2 on the NES but not loads, relatively speaking. It was the beginning of my plans to re-visit the first games I remember playing, these plans have been a failure so far. So the record, since I've re-forgotten this in the past, the other game I wanted to re-visit is Cloud Kingdoms on the Atari ST. This time around it took quite some time to figure out what this game was called. I also found out that it was definitely the Atari ST version that I played and that my memory of having another games console / computer before the Atari ST might be incorrect. It might be a false memory. There's a vague memory of playing a game on cassette that looked a bit like Space Invaders (though more sophisticated) but perhaps it was on a different platform, such as Atari ST or PC. I still haven't figure out what game that was and I did a lot of digging online trying to find out what cassette based platform I had. There's not that many and I watched videos of many games on them, none of them rang a bell at all. The closest I got was the Amstrad CPC but I watched a lot of game footage and none of it looked familiar, I even played it a tiny bit via my DE10-Nano (MiSTer Porject).

Writing about why I might write about Baywatch

Anyway, I could say far more about all the other stuff I've been doing or thinking about but that's not what I came here for. I came here mostly to write about Baywatch, to perhaps start a journey of regularly writing about Baywatch... this is very unlikely to happen, haha. My mission to review episodes of Buffy and Angel (or was it just Angel?) some years ago didn't last month and that show was shorter and better than Baywatch... I feel bad for saying 'better' because I love Baywatch at the moment, which I will explain later here or in a post another day.

So... Baywatch... I'd like to do a far longer introductions to Baywatch and a summary of the show but I'll try to keep this one short and do the proper one another day. This is because I think it's best I use this time today to start reviewing episodes, namely the episode that's freshest in my mind. Unfortunately I'm starting at the tail end of season 2, perhaps I'll go back and re-watch the older ones so I can review them. This is unlikely though since this show has eleven seasons, I think, not including small spin-offs. Also, if I do write more reviews, I might delete them from here in the future and move them to a place where more people will see them. Umm... no one will see them here and to be honest who cares about Baywatch anyway? Even moving the reviews will make little difference, I don't think they'd get many views even on somewhere like IMDB. Side note - I tried to find Baywatch reviews, they are all terrible or really short or don't exist. So at the moment, I'm just writing about Baywatch for myself... for some reason.

Mini Introduction to Baywatch

I never watched Baywatch in the 90's, I never even accidentally watched a bit of an episode, as far as I can remember. My personality hasn't changed all that much but my mindset was certainly in a very different place back then, I'm not surprised I didn't give the show a second thought. I was probably thinking more about video games and I was perhaps a little too young - I was watching mostly cartoons, films and anime. I didn't even have the hots for Pamela Anderson, I don't remember even thinking about it. Baywatch was something I'd heard about in the background chitter chatter of my life, I heard someone called Pamela Anderson was in it and I quickly ignored it and probably went back to playing Resident Evil. Or went to some arcades. Or most likely continued to develop emotional scaring from bullies and school that crafted my current personality. Maybe some other day I will tell you why I started watching, or maybe not. It's not important or interesting.

Is Baywatch Bad?

Apart from the fact that Baywatch ran for ages and was apparently massively popular, the show is considered trash, even back then, I think. The older I get, the more I realise how subjective everything is. If someone who has never watched TV before was given Baywatch, they would probably love it, in a similar way, I've never watched a show like this before so it is fresh to me. I'm usually into horror, sci-fi, comedy, Japanese anime kinda stuff and surreal things. Baywatch is usually none of these. Also Baywatch is old, like, really old. I'm on season 2 which aired in 1992 and the show finished in 2001 which is twenty two years ago! I was probably working in CeX back then! That may not mean anything to you but that was a big part of my life, it also feels like a life time ago.

The closer I get to the grave, the more I appreciate things, well, least, that's what I've been trying to do. I have been succeeding with this even though it's probably not possible with everything. However it is possible with entertainment since it's just for fun, right? I watch Baywatch and I can see that once upon a time, a lot of people worked hard on this show. Also like I mentioned earlier, it's old, shows like this aren't made anymore... OK, I don't watch that much TV and there's A LOT out there so I don't know that for sure, but one things for sure - Baywatch is set in the 90's and it was made in the 90's, that's not possible anymore, that gives it a unique flavour. Sometimes movies and TV shows are set in the past but no matter how hard they try, they aren't going to be like the real thing.

Is Baywatch sometimes cheesy? Yes. Is it lazy? Yes but rarely (I'll talk about that more another time). It's also quite easy watching though, I consume it when I get up while I consume my breakfast. It's not easy going though, one of the first things I was surprised by was how dramatic it is, people are hurt, people sometimes die and there's sometimes criminals involved. All things I didn't expect, I thought the show was just going to be about beautiful people on the beach. To be fair I hadn't thought about it much before starting the show, of course it's going to have tension and drama. It's still easy watching though since it's a 90's day time TV show, even when serious topics are addressed, they are done in a pretty soft way... for the most part.

All of the above was written two days ago but I didn't post it because for some reason I thought I'd come back to it and write some more. Namely a review of a Baywatch episode and perhaps edit all of this a bit. How silly of me to think this, I should have just made it live (Blogger has a draft option, basically it just automatically saves everything for you before you post it). I'll write the review another day... probably. Although I have already watched one or two more episodes since then.

Destructoid

One last thing before I go - I noticed I mentioned my Destructoid blog in my last post, unsurprisingly I haven't written a second "article" on there since and there's a good chance I never will. It was completely ignored which I'm not surprised by but still, it made me lose interest fast. Also yeah I knoe it was just one post and it was badly written, just like everything else I do. Roughly 5 months later and there was a sudden short fad on Youtube with FGC Youtubers posting their reviews of Street Fighter 6 music, so I was way ahead of curve. Usually they leaned into the idea that the music is bad, so just like me. They have titles like 'Is SF6 Music Really Bad?". Of course they get hundreds of thousands of views and comments while I get zero. Most of them are actually even lower effort than my post, barely saying anything more than "This one is boring" and "Oh this one is kinda fun". It shows that yes, you probably have to put in the time and effort to get popular at first but when you're at the top, you can post any old crap. Minimal effort but you will get attention and then everyone thinks you're smart or entertaining just because you see they're getting attention from thousands, sometimes millions of others.

Wow I sound bitter! I'm not actually that bothered about this and t happened a while ago, typing it all out just makes it sound like I'm more jealous than I really am. Then again typing it out may have revealed my inner feelings for it to myself. Really at the end of the day, it's just that I'm tired of not being good at anything and / or not succeeding at anything. So tired. The idea right now is to give up on it all, I've never left the starting line anyway so I'd probably be happier if I just gave up.

 Destructoid Blogs

I keep worrying that I'm repeating myself on here but instead of pointing it out, I should leave it and not worry about it.

I'm back again and it's only been about two months, I thought it had been longer than that. I'm thinking of starting a blog on Destructoid, which is a video games site. Briefly having a look reveals that most blog entries get zero replies but at least there'd be a better chance of getting views on there than there is here. I will point out again though, that I don't write on here to get attention, quite the opposite - I get a strange sense of satisfaction writing on here, knowing no one reads it... Or least, I don't think anyone does. I did see just now that most of my posts get one view but I assume that is, for some reason, counting myself as a single viewer. It could be from viewing it when not logged in? But then it seems like I'm always logged in here. If there is one single person out there has actually been reading my posts, I'd like them to comment just so I know. The fact that I'm asking that will probably make them even less likely to do so, though.

All posts on Destructoid will be games related,  of course, but I'm thinking of writing them on here first, this could be considered the draft area. If I got into it, I could post there first and then copy them over to here, for no reason at all really, but it's not like it would matter to anyone anyway. Come to think of it though, knowing me, I'll probably write one entry and then lose interested and leave it at that. The most likely scenario is that I'll write about games today, on here, meaning to post it on Destructoid later, and then never do so. My allocated hour will run out quick so my musing on games will likely be short and / or unfinished anyway.

Dead by Daylight

I'm glad I read my old entry about DbD just now because I think I would have repeated some stuff if I hadn't. Most things from two months ago still apply, I have played a few more games but not to completion and not nearly as much as DbD, even if you only include the hours I've poured into DbD within the past two months. I have tried to cut down on it but I still play it almost every night. The addictive hooks still drag be back in because the satisfaction of doing well in a match is higher than retro games I try out for the first time.

So why don't I try newer games in an attempt to ween myself off DbD? Well, when I'm not playing retro games, the IDEA of playing them is really nice, I get that sweet nostalgic feeling. To clarify, in case anyone does read this, I'm not talking about old games I've played before. There's old games I've always wanted to play and there's ones I've discovered more recently, through spending way too much time going through massive lists. That's the kinds of games I mean, they're normally PlayStation games because that console continues to fascinate me and also be nostalgic. It replaced the Mega Drive for me in nostalgic terms several years ago, even though the Mega Drive was a big deal for me for ages.

Road Rash 2

There are some retro titles I have started to revisit though, namely Road Rash 2. I was curious when I saw someone had hacked it to improve the frame rate and then if you switch on the overclocking feature on the MiSTer Mega Drive core, it improves it further. I didn't think it was possible to smooth out this type of game - The type that is 2D pretending to be 3D, if you catch my drift. That type of 3D is more commonly known in Sega titles like Out Run, I think it's called Super Scaler technology. I thought it was just sprites representing the same objects, but of different sizes to give the illusion that some are closer to the screen than others. Which would mean there's no 'medium' size of those sprites between the ones that exist, so how could you increase the frame rate? Well obvious you can because it's been done by some talented people in Road Rash 2 and 3. Yes, they'd modded the third game too, I haven't tried that one though.

I also tried out the 'sort of' Road Rash 4 on the PlayStation which is simply called Road Rash. they were ahead of their time, that naming strategy reminds me of the modern era of reboots! I'd head it's pretty good but I found it to be pretty awful, I even struggled to get through the confusing menu system. Perhaps I didn't give it enough time though, I dunno. I should say before I go completely off topic, this FPS hack is impressive. It didn't seem hugely different until I loaded up the original game, it seemed pretty damn bad. I think it at least doubles the frame rate, it goes up to 30fps from about 15. Unlike most retro titles, I did think to myself many years ago that Road Rash 2 was pretty choppy, and even longer after that, that was the reason why I never revisited it. I can happily revisit real old games and be fine with their low end graphics but the Road Rash series was one of the very few which I thought would be difficult to stomach now.

Playing Road Rash 2 around the same time a friend of mine showed me Elite Dangerous and Stellaris started to make me ponder my personal experiences with video games throughout my life and in the modern era. Admittedly I didn't play this Road Rash 2 mod for that long so what I'm about to say may not be relevant but - Elite Dangerous and Stellaris looked like hard work I'd have to study for while Road Rash 2 was simple, to the point and therefor fun. There's always been complicated games and I've played some of them but most titles I've experienced are simple action romps. I am an ancient relic who grew up going to arcades a lot, after all.

I've Lost My Way (aka nostalgia gripping me like it always does for old men like me)

The new thing that has happened, which should have dawned on me far sooner, is that I've drifted away from my roots - those old, simple arcade games, or arcade style games (they can be old consoles games, too) Is that a bad thing? It wouldn't be if I was happy but I'm not, I've become disillusioned by modern video games. So many games are released every week now and the older I get, the harder it is for me to get excited about any of them. I spend more time watching videos on YouTube about games, or of other people playing them, than playing them myself. That is a different discussion for a different day though. On a side note, I do enjoy absorbing the history of the gaming world at large, even some modern stuff. It certainly helps with the quiz I write once a month.

The thing is, even if I do get way back into old titles, the entire reason could be boiled down to a combination of two simple things - 1. Nostalgia, 2. Low quantity of brain cells (I'm not smart, is what I'm saying). Are these bad reasons? They may seem so at first, especially to any youngsters, but at my age you start to realise that it doesn't matter why you like something, just like it. Or maybe it's just me, since I've had depression issues, so I have spent a lot of time over-thinking things. At times I'd think man, I gotta keep up with contemporary games, don't get stuck in the past. But... why? Does it really matter? They're just entertainment after all. I think the only good argument, in my case at least, is that playing cutting edge games means I have more to talk about with my friends. Some of my mates are younger than me, you see. They aren't interested in 16-bit and 32-bit era games, I get the impression that stuff is garbage to them, it's ancient history. It's back when controls were stiff and janky and graphics were an eye-sore.

Going off on a tangent here - You know what? PlayStation games kind of ARE an eye-sore but I love them. Again it is probably just nostalgia, but my excuse is that looking amateur-ish is more appealing to me than our current state of realism found in the AAA industry. The environments largely look all the same to me which is the most cliche old man thing I could say but they really just do. They do look pretty, don't get me wrong, but there's something about all these identical, lush forests and fields which feel like they have no soul to me. OK they don't look exactly the same, they do have small differences between each other. What I like about an amateur look is you can see that human beings worked and struggled though these creations.

Ironically won't players be saying the game thing about PlayStation 5 titles when the PlayStation 10 comes out? Oh boy, look at how quaint and old fashioned PlayStation 5 games look, is what they'll be saying. Which means all this love for the past is in my head, which is worrying but again, perhaps I shouldn't care, perhaps I should embrace it. It is perhaps inevitable and how many times can I say the word perhaps. Old people do it with movies and music too, they say it's whatever we experienced in our teenage years, they are the informative ones. A more upsetting way of saying that, is that they are the best years of our lives, which certainly feels true for me. I ask the question again - But why? I honestly think it's because our brains are dying, we can't retain as much anymore. You can't teach an old dog new tricks, they say. That, combined with seeing roughly the same things rehashed over and over again in the entertainment would. I mean how many times can I get excited about a dude running around in first person shooting other dudes or monsters? They will look prettier, they will have small mechanical changes but they eventually aren't different enough to hold my interest.

Wow this got dark didn't it. Unfortunately it's where my brain is at, and it's been like this for a while. I'll try not to be like this all the time but I'm not promising anything. Also I should mention I'm pretty sure I'm going through a mid-life crisis, that is definitely another way of framing this. I have more to write about but I've been on here far longer than intended, as usual. I shall post this on my 'drop in the sea' blog and think about weather or not I'm going to post it on Destructoid. Now that I've written something, I realise I'd definitely have to edit it before posting there, because there's a lot of fluff, jabbering and angst which would be embarrassing to post on a more public platform.

Extra extra! I'm adding this bit at the end because after finishing this blog entry, I read all of my last entry and the bit that stood out was - 

"I this post may be very uninteresting to myself in the future because I rarely spoke about anything specific, like one big thing I was going to talk about was my bad dream concerning an old relationship. That's the main reason I feel down today. I'll talk about it another time if I remember to do so. I really should go do some exercising in the park now."

Funny thing is, I can't for the life of me remember this dream. I really should be happy about this and I kind of am but I do find it a little interesting that I can't remember it at all. I do sort of remember being upset that day because of it, but it certainly wasn't as bad as THAT dream I had at my mums a lot longer ago. I shouldn't be pasting this section here because why remind myself twice in the future out this? Well, I still can't remember it do I guess it doesn't matter. But now I'm even reminding you of the dream at my mums, which is kinda bad but that's one I've never forgotten anyway. Perhaps because I did actually try to do something about it after... which didn't exactly lead to something great. I... still can't remember this other dream from a couple months ago though, which is kind of a good thing but at the same time it shows how crap my memory really is. We really do forgot a lot, don't we. How much do we forgot?! Like, the majority, perhaps. Anyway, bye.

Guess What I'm Back Again with Nonsense

 

Preamble

I'm so used to dark mode in almost everything now, that writing this in Bloggers usual editor is a pain, so I'm using Notepad++ to write the draft. Using my new monitor made it worse, I'm not used to the clinical look of whites that appear on it and the text was too small at first. Oddly, changing the resolution from 2k to 4k seems to made the text a little bigger... I think? Actually I look to see if there's any options in Notepad++ to make the text even bigger. I'm getting old, this text is too small! Also I can fix the white tones later on the monitor settings, of course (if I can be bothered). Wow, I just zoomed in a lot in Notepad++, that's a lot better.

Getting to the Point

Right, well, here I am again and I've given myself half an hour as usual and as usual, I'll probably break that rule by far. It doesn't help that I spent the first five minutes messing around with other things. Also I started off, as usual, by reading my previous post but I stopped quickly when I realised that A- I didn't have the time and B- It was starting off a lot like I was planning this post to be. That's slightly disturbing. And, well, here is that rather repetitious "Intro", or whatever it is (imaging a slightly sarcastic tone when reading some of the next paragraph)

The Intro

Well, wow, look at this then, it's been ages YET AGAIN since I last wrote on here. I said that in my last post but there was "only" an eight month gap I think, while there's well over a year gap this time. I'm honestly surprised it has been that long, which is another thing I said in the last post. But come to think of it, I'm actually shocked this time, has it really been that long? Quite scary really. My half hour has ran out by the way and look how little I've wrote. Not only that but I've basically written nothing so far, why am I writing such unimportant nonsense? I will stay on for a bit longer but it is getting pretty late.

I thought I had a lot of good stuff to say but perhaps not... I'm not sure. Anyway moving on... I've probably also said this before - Coming back to this blog, it reminds me of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and I wonder if from an outsiders point of view, it makes me look like a mega fan. While in truth, I haven't consumed any Buffy media since several posts ago. Which if judging by how long even the past post was, has been longer ago than I thought. On a side note, I might read some more of my last post after I've finished writing this. Because, well, it seems I am obsessed with myself and again I will point out that I don't think anyone reads this blog and I'm oddly OK with that. Though perhaps Blogger staff read everything everyone posts? I don't think I've ever considered that and thinking about it slightly takes away the magical idea that I'm posting into the void. I shouldn't worry though, staff probably only read entries if their system flags any illegal activities in peoples posts, I assume.

But What About My Life?

I should write about my actual life, shouldn't I. Even if I'm the only one who reads this back later (in months or years), I should wrote more than just nonsense relating to, well, writing this blog and technical issues. That kinda stuff will most likely not interest my future self. SO yeah, how is my life? Well, I think I usually only write on here when I'm feeling extra weird and depressed, which I am right. I am often depressed but that is not enough to make me write on here, I have to feel odd too. I guess it what makes me write on here is a sort of in between feeling of sadness. In the (luckily) rare cases when I'm incredibly depressed, I will not feel like writing on here, so I have to be in this between state.

Come to think of it I am pretty low right now. This is perhaps as low as I go because my brain no longer (hopefully) lets me hit rock bottom anymore because it's not worth it. That might sound odd but... umm I can't explain it. I think my brain has put up some blocks over the past few years which signs on them saying "Don't go beyond this point, there's no point because anything is better than being insanely miserable". Of course, saying all this might invite fate, I may now get worse than this later... In fact while writing I realise that of course things can get worse and they probably will... they will for sure... I don't want to think about it so let's move on.

How do I feel right now? I feel so old. I really hated hitting 40 last year, it was harrowing. 40 is an age which is significant to humans for some reason, I think it is considered the official 'You are definitely, not remotely young anymore. You are an old man or woman'. A few months later I told myself that I'm over that hurdle now, that 41 is going to be easy because of it. But I can't believe I'm already only a few months away from turning 41 and it feels pretty damn bad all over again. Now I'm thinking about how fast time seems to move, I've been thinking a lot about that lately. I actually found a bit of a remedy to it but I haven't practised it much and that is because it's hard. This segways into a new topic.

I'm Addicted to Media, I'm just a CONSUMER

Sounds kinds pathetic typing it out now... I quit TV and YouTube for four, well... three days. I wanted to quit it for seven days but I crumbled. The one new thing I learnt it that it made time go slower, so I should do it if I don't want my life to seem like it is flying by. I am so terrified of dying now. The only other thing it brought to mind was what I already new - I'm addicted to watching screens. It's a problem, it really is. It's a hard thing to stop now because my brain has got used to it over decades. Ironically I'm mostly talking about TV and YouTube, not video games. Perhaps if I suddenly started to play loads of games again I'd take this back but, currently, and for a long time now, to me I think playing games would be more healthy than watching TV all the time. It takes more brain power and also feels like I'm achieving something. On the other hand it will wouldn't be achieving much, would it?

Dead by Daylight

Oh gosh, speaking of which that's made me realise I hadn't started playing Dead by Daylight when I last wrote on here. I started playing it about a year ago and it's pretty much the only game I've played that whole time. Even though I was just talking about how I don'y play many games anymore, that is sort of not true - I've played about a thousand hours of DbD it's not the same thing I was talking about in the above paragraph. I haven't been playing it instead of TV, I've been playing it AS WELL as TV. Plus it doesn't feel like I'm achieving anything because it is just the one game and it also has a sort of gambling mentality to it. That's not quite the right of explaining it - Some of the game has addictive elements which I think are taken from the psychology behind gambling addiction. This is nothing new in video games, most people don't even think about it anymore, it's common but it's new to me. I'm so behind in some aspects of the video games world which is another thing I should fix. DbD was the first game I'd played like this even though it recently turned six (or seven?) years old and I only started it a year ago.

Another new thing to me is having Steam tell me how long I've played a game. Besides Ultra Street Fighter IV, I hadn't played many Steam games before even though I own a load on there. Which I know is a cliche thing to say at this point, I've bought a load of cheap Steam games over the years just like a lot of people. There's also a big gap before DbD when I played nothing on Steam at all, I think. Thing is... I can't deny that DbD is fun but it gives me some bad feelings after playing it sometimes, unlike the satisfied feelings I got every night after playing some Parasite Eve. Which reminds me...

Are Old Video Games Just Better For Me?

I added the 'for me' bit because of course video games aren't WORSE now, it's all subjective. I keep pushing myself to play old games after Parasite Eve but I keep failing, I'm going to keep trying though because I honestly think it'll be better for me. There are several reason but I'll say one - They're what I'm used to. Or, they are what my old self is used to. I haven't actually played many old games over, what, ten, fifteen years? But I still think I'll feel right at home if I get back into them. By the way I'm mostly refering to old games that I haven't played before, this is all culminating in the fact that even though I'm a big games fan and I know a lot about them, I have an embarrassing list of classics that I haven't played. Not a literal list, it's in my head. One reason I hesitate is because the list is so long.

Parasite Eve

On a related note and going back to what I mentioned earlier, when did I actually play it? I didn't think it was that long ago but evidently I have a terrible time keeping track of time. judging from how long ago my last post was here. I played it in the Covid Pandemic but I thought it was quite close to the end. Maybe not? I mean the pandemic messed with peoples perception of time but I've still been struggling with it even after it ended.

Anyway there was a lot more I wanted to say and this has been the WORST post for rambling ever but it's so late, I must go. I this post may be very uninteresting to myself in the future because I rarely spoke about anything specific, like one big thing I was going to talk about was my bad dream concerning an old relationship. That's the main reason I feel down today. I'll talk about it another time if I remember to do so. I really should go do some exercising in the park now.

I'm Back

 

Oh hello blog, it's been a while. Looking at my last post, it's been about eight months, wow, I can't believe it's been that long already, it doesn't feel like it's been that long. It looks like no one has read any of my old posts, actually I don't think there's any way of knowing that but there definitely are no comments. Again I will point out that these facts are fine, that I do in fact have rather confusing feelings towards this blog, confusing in my own head anyway - It is public and even uses my real name, but for several reasons it's very unlikely anyone reads it, especially people I don't know. And people who do, well, I don't have many friends anymore and the ones I do, I doubt they care enough to randomly put my name into Google. I mean, I assume this blog would come up if you did search my name on Google.

So this blog is kind of just for me, except it's online so I can't say ANYTHING, so I do hold myself back a bit. But I like this weird in-between feeling of having a blog which is public but also kinda not. I mean, as in no one reads it. I'm over explaining this.

By the way I've given myself half an hour to write this, which I think is the time I used to give myself, even though I would often go way over. I did go back and read some of the last two posts, to see where I left off, to see perhaps why I stopped posting and also just out of curiosity. Unsurprisingly it really is a load of trash, which is most likely what the posts before that were as well, I do remember that I used to blabber on a lot and I wish to continue that tradition. That is one of the reasons I write in here; to get things out of my head, I guess. Or something like that. I didn't quite expect to find so many typos but it's not that surprising, they will also most likely continue. I have however become more worried about my mind over the past eight months; My typing, and to a lesser extent my actual speaking, seems to be become faulty. Of course typos are a normal thing but I never used to miss out really important words in sentences, I find it a little odd that the words I usually miss out are in fact the important ones. Without them the sentence is hard to read or the meaning of the sentence is often reversed. Like the best example is I'll miss out the word NOT. But concerning speaking out loud, it's mostly that I forget words and simple ways to explain things. I'm worrying that I'm getting early on-set Alzheimer's disease. Anyway let's change the subject.

I just had a call from my therapist, as in literally after I finished that last paragraph. I booked an appointment with her, hadn't spoken to her in a while. She had to take some time off.

One thing I didn't forget over eight months is the fact that I wrote a lot about the Buffy TV show on here. I mean, not since the start of the blog many years ago, but it's mostly what I wrote about in the chunk of time I was writing on here while in the pandemic of 2020. More specifically I think that chunk of time in which I was watching a lot of Buffy was in the first lockdown. Since then we've had three in the England, we are currently in the third and on the news they say it will be the final one. They aren't however saying when it'll end exactly but that it will most likely be at the start of spring. I am writing this in February 2021, in case you haven't noticed yet.

I don't plan on writing here every day, maybe once a month? Not that I'm going to try to stick to any schedule, I've learnt through experience that I can't stick to pretty much anything for a long period of time. Probably the only thing I have sticked to is the games quiz I make. That's odd, it's tell me that the word 'sticked' isn't a real word, hah, weird. I just noticed a typo on here while writing this and the funny thing about my typos is that they often look like auto-correct errors but they aren't, they are MY errors.

Anyway, as usual I keep going on tangents, back to Buffy. When I last wrote on here eight months ago, I hadn't finished Buffy and Angel. It also looks like I had already stopped tying to write (kind of) reviews for each episode. I had been writing notes on paper while watching them and then used to notes to write on here. But I had already got behind on them in my last few posts, evidently. It was too much effort, this blog is supposed to be a kind of escape for me. I think the translating and expanding on the Buffy and Angel notes thing was too much work. Which is a lot like most things I try in life, they just end up becoming a chore. By the way I'm trying to cut back on using the word 'just', I noticed I use it a lot.

Perhaps a big reason I started writing on here again last year was because I got really into Buffy and Angel so I wanted an outlet. I used this blog because it's not like anyone I know was watching the shows or would be even interested in it if they weren't. In fact there's a good chance that most people I know think the shows are rubbish. Or at least, and understandably, they wouldn't be interesting because it's such an old show.

Oh, half hour is up but I wanna keep going for a bit - After my last post, I finished watching Buffy and Angel, my nostalgia trip was over and I just remembered that I really didn't want it to end. In fact I just realised that I don't think I wrote about the comics on here, because I think I didn't look into them until after I finished the shows. The comics are, especially at the time, a continuation of the shows, which would have been perfect for me. I think it was a good idea. I way WOULD because I did some research and they seem really really.... crap. It was kind of sad actually. I did find some positive stuff but when I read the negative reviews, I really agreed with them. I looked up a lot of pictures and read a pirated version of the first issue of the Buffy one. By the way they are called seasons, so the Buffy one is season 8. They really don't look or feel like they're the same thing. There's literally at least one interview with one of the creators (maybe Joss?) saying that it's great to make Buffy and Angel into a comic because you don't have to worry about special effects budgets. But when I looked and read some of it, that was in fact one of the big problems. Having "no budget" meant the comics didn't feel like anything like the show. Suddenly there's dragons and fantasy stuff and Dawn is A GIANT which seems to go on for a while. She is a giant straight away and they're all living in a castle in Scotland or something, and now there's whole teams of slayers. Which is what happened at the end of the TV show but I don't think it was a good premise to base a large part of the comic on.

All these new slayers weren't that interesting in the final season of the TV show, they're even less interesting in the comic. They are also unrecognisable, though this is also an issue with even the main Buffy characters, sometimes they look really different, sometimes because they are simply not drawn well. However the front covers look great. I admit that the idea that the characters are unrecognisable is not my idea, I saw it in a review but then I did notice it for myself.

The other reason I gave up on the comics early was because the story and even story structure was not interesting and not the same as the TV show. So I after I read the first issue, I looked up summaries and info on what happens next in the Buffy and Angel comics and they sounded so crap and ridiculous. Now I do want to defend myself, almost against myself, in fact - Others, and even myself, would usually say that you should stick with things past just episode or issue 1 because things can often be a bit rough at first. But the Buffy and Angel comics are an exception because you can clearly see from looking at pictures from them and also reading up on the stories. I looked up A LOT on them and they were clearly very different from the show. One annoying part of the story is that in the Angel comics, it turns out that Gun becomes a vampire and therefor a villain. That's just ruining the character and was not alluded to at all at the end of the TV show.

The sad thing about my ranting is that I'm complaining about comics that are themselves, in fact, old. The shows are old enough and I'd already watched them before I re-watched them last year, but the comics came out not long after both shows ended (maybe a year max?) and I didn't read them back then at all. So it's pretty pathetic and pointless me talking about them on here to be honest. Them being old also means that a HELL of a lot of stuff had happened in them by the time I was researching their stories. Like, really crazy stuff, most of which I can't remember because I must have been looking info up about them about 6 months ago. Another reason the comics don't feel "real" is that the actors from the show don't seem to acknowledge them. I mean, why would they? They moved on a long time ago. In fact it was kind of sad for me to look them up after I finished the show last year, but hay that's life. Most of it wasn't too bad but one thing was quite tragic really - The actor who played Xander sounds like a bit of a mess now, or least he was after Buffy ended. Being the nicest character on the show, it shattered my illusions of the show when I head that he's had drinking problems. I think also drug issues and maybe even domestic abuse charges? I can't remember exactly, probably because I didn't want to think about it for long.

Another issue with the comics is that it turns out they're shockingly expensive. I could have just read them online but I hate reading digital comics, I've tried a lot but it not so different and not as good. BTW a different Buffy comic did start in more recent years, if I remember correctly. It looks better, it looks more like it's sticking to the feeling of the show, so maybe I'll try that one day.

Enough about the comics, let's move on. Anyway, after writing all that, I have the sneaking suspicion that I may have actually written about the comics last year. If I did, it means I've been repeating myself this whole time (in this blog entry).

Actually I should end this post now, even though I have so much more to say but I've been writing for about an hour. Can't believe I mostly wrote about Buffy stuff and old stuff at that. When I say old, I mean stuff I was pondering about seven months ago. I have so many more things to write about concerning actual current times. However I will end this post by saying more about Buffy -

Even now, months later, even before I decided to come back to this blog, I will think about the Buffy and Angel shows. They've occasionally been popping into my skull ever since I finished re-watching them. It was nostalgic watching them (especially on a CRT) while in lock-down in my flat. I'm now looking back at that period I was watching them last year and I'm even nostalgic for that! After I finished them I did entertain the thought of starting them all over again. I didn't because it seemed like a bad idea for several reasons, one reason was that I don't want to get sick of the shows. I wish I could watch them over and over 'for the first time' but that doesn't make sense, of course. My plan is to, well, basically do what I did in the first place - Re-visit them after some time has past, so that I have had time to sort of forget them. That's the best one can do, really. I mean to be honest I'm getting older and older and my memory might get really bad, and I worry about that. But perhaps the only silver lining of that is that I can watch Buffy and Angel again with new, or least newish, eyes. That way I can love it and experience it all over again. I rarely watch anything after I've seen it once but these shows are exceptions because I think they're amazing. One of the few others is Seinfeld, I'm currently on season five. However I'm not watching it as feverishly as I did Buffy and Angel.

Yet Another Buffy Book (not a novel this time)

Today

Well I just wasted five of my thirty minutes on here trying to remove the link to this blog from my Facebook account, it's in the 'Websites and Social Links' section. I didn't let me get rid of it, it just comes up with an error! It probably doesn't matter either way though, because I only just noticed that the entire section seems to be hidden from the public, it's seems to be only visible by me. This is fine now but somewhat annoying because it means that list of links hasn't been visible to friends for, well, maybe ever, maybe decades or whenever I added them. I wished to remove the link here for a silly reason - Logging into here today, I noticed it's saying all my latest entries have been viewed once. Now I shouldn't want this blog to be unacceptable by all but... actually maybe I do. Anyway it's all stupid because it's likely saying there's been one view due to Blogger simply wigging out, or I just viewed it once without being logged in.

In other news, I met up with my mum. I walked into town to meet her and remembered that it was the 15th, the day some of the restrictions on the lock-down were lifted. Most places were still closed at first glance, my area of town didn't seem that different. However the center of Nottingham was just as busy as it used to be before the virus, even though not that many places were open and there were annoying looking queues due to the social distancing rules. The amount of people filled me with anxiety when I got the feeling that everyone else had loads of friends, things to do and people to hang out with.

As soon as I got back home after my mum left, I said to myself that I'd spend the rest of the day (well until about 10pm when I eat and watch TV) doing productive but fun stuff. I mean, as in the productive stuff that isn't as stressful. So why it then I ended up spending ten minutes watching Youtube and then forty-three minutes reading this flipping book;

Slayer - An Expanded and Updated Unofficial and Unauthorized Guide to Buffy the Vampire Slayer



How long have I been in Nottingham already, seven, eight years? It would be in the early days, perhaps year one or two that I was going to a library a lot, mostly because I was doing courses that the job center were putting me on, it's a nice library and I should start going back there when they re-open, come to think of it. In year one or two I was in there and they were selling books that they weren't going to lend out anymore, why do they do this? I guess books that hardly ever get loaned out.

I bought a few things, a Teen Titans graphic novel, if I recall, maybe something else and this book. I never read it and I hadn't seen Buffy for a long time but it must have sparked something in my mind to make me want it, not just the price of 20p. Even then, I'm surprised I bought it because I reckon I had very different things on my mind at the time, though maybe I'm wrong. Things have happened in my life in recent times which have lead me to believe that my memory isn't as good as I thought it was.

I found it in a dusty cobwebbed corner (I think on the book shelve) in my mum's garage when I was tidying it a couple of months ago. Just so you know, a load of my stuff is in there from last time I moved, when my mum kindly let me leave less important stuff in there so as to not clutter my new flat. Well that was the plan but I have gradually taken more stuff to the flat over the years I've been here (two or three years, maybe?). What happens is I occasionally visit and get all nostalgic for things so I take them back with me, there's still a fair amount in there though. Last time I was there I focused on a big organising of my books, comics and magazines, baring in mind I was never much of a book person when I was young and became even less so over time, but have been getting a bit back into them lately.

I forgot to take this Slayer book back with me but I asked my mum to bring it with her and umm... she did. Where I am going with this? I've just ran out of time and realised I probably shouldn't explain every single detail... I'm enjoying that though for some reason. Anyway the book, I don't think I actually have much to say about it (famous last words).

Even though it took me forty-three minutes I've only read a little - The review of 5x01, 5x02 and funnily enough the back of the book has short reviews of some of those novels I've been waffling on about on here, so I read the one on Halloween Rain.

BTW I'd spent so little time looking or thinking about this book before, that I didn't know it was some kind of guide, it could have been one of the novels for all I know. I probably bought it all those years ago and chucked it on the shelf without a second glance. Come to think of it I was already in Nottingham by then so I most likely but it straight in the garage and then moved out not long after.

Before opening this book today, a thought crossed my mind - This is probably going to make me self-conscious about my blog writings on Buffy, it's going to be a lot like my write ups but well written and far more thought provoking and notice stuff I didn't. And explain the complexities which I struggle with, ignore because they're hard or didn't even notice. Also the fact that the book is from 2001 made these feelings worse for some reason, actually that reason would be that it would make my blog even more pointless. That fact that it was 20p also should have emphasised those feelings. I'm saying all this as if I put a lot of effort into this blog, haha.

 Well I was surprised to find that this book doesn't seem very good so far, I'm not sure if that makes me happy or not. On the one hand it means I was worried about nothing and it's make me a little happier about my admittedly terrible and lazy writings on this show (I really just do it to get the thoughts out of my head). But on the other hand it means it's not going to be a fun read, also perhaps I could have learnt something from it for this blog, or at least been pointed to things I didn't know about Buffy. I dunno, maybe there's better parts of it that I'll find later. Barring in mind I don't think it's a book that needs to be read in order, it's sectioned into episodes so I skipped to the season I'm watching.

The reason it seems lame is that it doesn't actually exactly review the episodes, it more just lists factoids. I said a minute ago "or at least been pointed to things I didn't know about Buffy", actually this book does have that but it's things I don't really care about. I don't care about what real world song could be heard on a radio in the background in a scene for 3 seconds! I guess there's a few little interesting things, it clearly would have taken a lot of research to write this book. He's looked up things like interviews so it's kinda interesting to hear how Alyson Hannigan felt about having to suddenly play Willow as gay.

But I need to point out that it's just a couple of mines from the interview and it's the kind of thing I read and say "hah, ok" to myself and then move on, I really care very little about it. I'm more interested in the storytelling and emotions in the actual episodes, not that "Sarah Michelle Gellar's boyfriend almost got the role of Draculla" in 5x01.

So what does the book say about the actual episodes? I thought it was going to be the writers thoughts on the episodes story, he seems to very briefly sometimes mention this but for the most part it seems to be lists of stuff from the actual episode. I'm explaining this terribly - He will list quotes he thinks are good and explain them if they are referencing something like pop culture like a film, and mention that something someone said is a reference to an earlier episode. He'll then list the page number for said episode. So basically most of the "review" for say 5x01, is stuff that feels like it's been copy pasted from the shows scripts, or referring to stuff that happened to in the episode but actually taking about it. It's simply saying this happened and this happened.

Come to think of it this is probably my misunderstanding, does it say 'review' anywhere? No, this is a GUIDE, something that is good if I want to look up FACTS like what film did Xander joke about in episode so and so. An example of my disappointment is this - I know I haven't written about it on here yet because I'm super behind my notes but I feel that there's a lot of stuff that can be said about Dawns introduction into the story. How it's done and how shes a part of the story from then on is genius in my opinion. But what does this book say about this? Well in 5x01 I don't think he mentions it at all besides saying something like 'Buffy's sister is introduced, wait Buffy has a sister?'. OK this is fair enough, shes only seen for a few seconds as a cliff hanger at the end of the episode. However 5x02 fully introduces Dawn and it's a head fuck and a WTF is going on moment. But all this book says, besides listing quotes, is something like "It was worrying that Dawns actress couldn't pull it off, but shes good in the role". And THAT'S IT. Oh I think he also lists things that shes been in before, I think he mentions that her and Sarah Michelle Gellar were in a different show before when they were younger.

I GUESS that kinda stuff is super interesting to some fans, but I thought the book was going to be more thought provoking. I mean, it looks like each ep has a bit called 'It's a Designer Label' where he almost literally lists what the characters were wearing. "Xander is wearing an orange top with white trousers", he might say "which is flashy" or something along those lines if you're lucky. It seems like the book is a result of a hell of a lot of research while the opinion on of the writer is not important so almost non-existent. At the end of one ep he does say that it was a great one and says one more line but that's it, quite surface level stuff.

Again though, perhaps I'm misunderstanding what this book is for, plus maybe there's parts of it I don't know of yet. Also his command of the English language is still far better than mine, to be fair. Looking online, it seems the book has been revised several times, adding the later seasons. There seems to be one that might be as recent as 2019?! My one is 2001 I think.

I gotta go, I've been on here for... almost an hour and a half?! What?!

Half an hour, definitely half an hour blog today as this is definitely procrastinating today.

I feel terrible today. I've been feeling bad for days now, it started almost a week ago, maybe? I thought it would ended by now. Wasn't sure how I'd feel today but I should have known judging from how bad I felt as soon as I woke up in my bed. Not as bad as I've felt many times in the past when I've opened my eyes but it certainly felt familiar. Small things are triggering me, things that really should upset me or least should just bug me for a maximum of five minutes.

  More on 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Halloween Rain'

The other thing that the cover brings to mind is the old school Photoshop text and framing, well, I assume it's Photoshop or something similar. I mean, it looks already really. It's the "modern" font as in it's the font the show used for most of its run, just not its first season. Or was it less than one season? I'm a bit confused because this book came out in the first year of the show so how is it using the logo / font from season 2? Maybe I'm wrong and that changed the logo in the show quicker than I remember.

You may have noticed that in my ramblings about this novel, I haven't said much about the actual story-line. Well I'm almost half way through and it's really quite basic. In fact I'm surprised to see where my bookmark is because so far almost the entire story has been about the three main (original) Scooby gang hanging out at the Bronze for a Halloween party. I say story though it's more like just a detailed account of their conversations with each other and occasionally some others at the party. It's not even done in a very dramatic way, making it feel like this part of the book probably has little or nothing to do with the plot involving Halloween rain which brings scarecrows to life. That element, the whole point of the book, has been mentioned so far but only briefly.

They immediately put the facts out there about the rain and the scarecrows, come to think of it, no built up or mystery. So I'm starting to think that after the Bronze scene, they'll come across some scarecrows, fight them, win and that'll be the end of the book. Will there be any surprise twists or things being turned on their heads, like the show often does?

All this is making it sound like I hate it and that it's rubbish but I'm really enjoying reading it. Don't get me wrong, even with my limited book reading knowledge (especially in the past 15 or so years) I can tell that most would consider this novel to be complete garbage. It is a 1997 book based on a TV show, after all. Probably also aimed at young teens though I'm not saying that because I think the show is too. Well, I dunno, maybe it was at first but it's watched (or was) by people of many ages and it's not some dumb show for kids. A lot of people like Saved by the Bell and I wouldn't say it's rubbish but there's a certain dumbness to it and a certain simplicity to it. Buffy is way above Saved by the Bell, it has insanely more depth...

Look at me defending Buffy and why the hell am I comparing it to Saved by the Bell?! I had a point but Saved by the Bell probably isn't the best example.

So why am I liking the novel so far? So much so that I want the next one! Well, like I said, almost all of what I read is them in the Bronze. Because it's a book and perhaps because I'm a slow reader, it's like watching an episode except it's in real time. They chat to each other a lot more, it's like they really are there for the night. And even though on one level I'm sure the writing is simple, I'm surprised at how well written it actually is. This probably has a lot to do with how bad I am at words, writing, etc, which shows in this blog. The novel uses words and descriptive sentences which I'm not used to, especially since I basically never read fiction anymore.

However, I think in my last post on here, I said about the "hip" 90's slang like 'so' and 'way', it's even worse than I thought. I've read more now and they use it SO often, and not in the way I just used it which actually makes more sense than they do in the book. Actually do these even count as slang? The book goes use more clear 90's slang but it doesn't often repeat them. You know what I mean, even in a bad book if someone said 'that's totally radical', the writer isn't going to use it loads of times because it stands out to both them and the readers. They'd only use it more if they were being ironic or pointing out a character is stupid.

I reckon 'so' and 'way' were deeper in peoples minds in the 90's. I don't doubt the writers were still aware they were putting them in this book, but they may have been thinking that it's literally how people speak now. Like that way the youngsters are speaking is going to stick around. I dunno, maybe not. I'm struggling to explain myself. What I'm saying is it's how kids spoke back then, it was beyond slang. They're more like the word 'cool' which is slang but it's so popular that it's been around for decades and it's still used today. If someone says 'cool' in 2020, no matter their age, I doubt the ones around them are going to think "That's so old fashioned". 'Cool' just got that popular, perhaps partly because it's simpler than a lot of other slang.

'So' and 'way' didn't stick around so much but I guess it was just easy to slip it into the book back then. I guess you can't tell what's going to sound incredibly dated when you're living it, living in the now. I say it like I loath it but what's wrong with things sounding dated? Those kinds of things are just nostalgic for me now, even though 'so' and 'way' weren't used much in the UK, as far as I remember. Things like this simply ground the subject in the era or place it's set in or was written in.

I was going to go through my episodes notes, ran out of time.

One of the Buffy Albums, not really what I was looking for. I talk a bit about the albums later in this post.
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Stress

I'm writing this at 13:22 which is odd for me, I write on here late usually, in fact I may have never written on here this early in the day. I feel like doing it now though, perhaps because I and Buffy and Angel on my mind after doing some research one the soundtracks. That wasn't supposed to take long but it took exactly can hour, since I've been keeping track of how long I so things, it's quite shocking how long I spend on some things. I can struggle to sit down for an hour to learn how to use Blender (the 3D program) but doing other stuff is a breeze and the time will fly by. It's quite obvious why; one doesn't require much thinking. I guess searching for soundtracks requires very little brain power and is kind of fun.

Writing this blog is also something that is easy and time just flies by, I've again given myself half an hour today.

I've been meaning to look up the soundtracks for weeks, mostly because I noticed I liked the episode scores, especially for Angel. They remind me of some of the music from the game called Parasite Eve. I did manage to find some and I'm in the process of downloading them though there seems to be far more Buffy ones than Angel. Yes I'm being a dirty pirate, I'm probably not going to buy them.

It's kinda interesting to me (but no one else) to see that a lot of the soundtracks were released after the shows had finished, some by quite some years. It probably interests me purely for my unhealthy obsession with the past, the feelings I get through this make sense to me but it's hard to explain in works. I could maybe explain it but I can't be bothered at the moment, I'm not in the mood.

I'm meeting up with my mum tomorrow, last time I saw her was last Monday. The week leading up to that Monday was good but this past week has been pretty crappy, especially the past three days. This week has gradually got worse and worse but it's not like anything that bad has happened, not exactly. It's more like stuff just going around in my head.

One of the reasons why I'm writing on here this early is because how how shit I feel today. A couple of things did happen the past two days but I don't think they're the reason for my mood, they were just small things that opened the flood gates. Something like that. I think it's my lists, which I haven't explained much on here so most of this probably won't make any sense if anyone else ever reads this.

My lists, my scheduling, they've been good for about 41 or so days but it's become repetitive this past week (I'm on day 48 now), it's getting boring so I'm losing motivation. I kinda new this was coming because it's natural for most, it's a good idea to keep things interesting by mixing things up. The problem though is that the only way I know how to do that is to do completely different things. In other words, quit projects and start new ones, that seems like a bad idea because I'll get no where that way.

That leads on to the next problem -  I was satisfied with my small, gradual progress with my projects but this week I've been looking at my overall progress and it feels like I've done almost nothing. Like, yeah I've made a bit of progress but it's so small that I'm worrying that they're a waste of time and that I'm too old. I'll be too old or dead by the time I can put any of these projects to good use. By the way I'm just calling them projects to simplify things, what I mean by them is things like learning how to draw, etc.

This worrying about being too old to do this stuff isn't new, I've had this issue many times in the past. The thing is it would be nice to think of these projects as "just for fun" but I've tried that and that's not how my brain works. Perhaps THAT'S something I should work on, when it comes to self-improvement.

I may write random, out of context paragraphs on here today because my mind feels muddled. Like this one - The other reason I'm writing on here right now is an attempt to get my thoughts straightened out. There may be a little bit of procrastinating going on, too.

Buffy Books

Oh yeah, I forgot I can make bold, underlined titles as well. There's more I wanted to say about the Halloween Rain book I mentioned yesterday. My alarm just went off but I'll give myself another half an hour, I feel like writing here is therapeutic today. I'm starting to think that a maximum of one hour on each thing I want to do in a day is a good way of looking at it. Anyway, the book - I mentioned the front cover (which I posted yesterday), I released why it stood out to me... wait, did I already say this in my last post? I think I may have mentioned it but I'll elaborate -  It features Giles and Buffy in the season 1 library, looking at us, or rather the camera. In fact it's more of a stare, especially Giles who looks surprised.

You never see the characters look at the camera in the show, of course, and I think this is what I mentioned yesterday. That's part of it but the new thing I realized, the other thing that makes it stand out, is that it makes the viewer feel like they're actually there in the scene. It's like you're a character in the show, you've just walked in and are about to speak to these great characters. This is an interesting tactic and was possibly intentional by the photographer and / or whoever created these books. This may all sound like I'm overthinking things but I've learnt recently that things created in our world are usually a lot more complicated than you think. Or a process behind a creative thing has a lot more levels and thought put into it.

Or hand-stands, I've been learning how to do one. Such a simple looking, basic thing, you'd think. Yeah I'm sure many will be sure you have to be physically fit to do them but I'm sure lots will see people doing them in gymnastics on TV and not give it a second though. You'll see someone do it and it'll look pretty average. But I've been learning them and the more you try, the more you realize how many tiny things are going on, both with balance and parts of your body. I've gradually become more and more aware of the small things parts of my body are doing, for example the tiny differences in the placements of my hands. I'm not even good at them yet by the way.

Back to the book. While I was writing about the front over in one of the above paragraphs, it reminded me of something I've noticed in myself over the past week - I'm becoming obsessed with the Buffy and Angel TV shows... perhaps. And I'm probably going to say even more stuff about this book soon which will make me look even more crazy, but hell, that is what this blog is for. I've been watching it for way more than a week but before this week, I wouldn't think about it much until it was night time when it was time to watch it, now I'm finding myself thinking more and more about it in the day, looking forward to it. And today, of course, looking the soundtracks and writing on here about it for an hour. Besides it being a brilliant franchise, the obsession is probably coming from my crappy week, I'm wanting to escape the crappyness and avoid the projects I gave myself because they're gradually feeling more like chores.

More about the book and this is were I go into weird territory and why I might delete my link to this blog on my Facebook page, because I'm about to sound very sad. Not that I use FB at all anymore and no one looks at it, they barely did even when I did use it. Also the link is on the About page, who ever looks at that page anymore? No one. I started re-watching Buffy out of nostalgia, a kind of obsessive, most likely unhealthy obsession I have with nostalgia. I'm using the word obsessive way too much, look at me with my terrible, limited writing skills. So here I am, still watching it a while after I started, past the half way point and progressing through Angel as well. The shows get better and better, for the most part, one would argue that season 1 of both shows are the worst. I feel bad saying that because they're still great compared to most shows but they're still a bit weak. This is standard for most TV shows however, they often ramp up and the creators get warmed up and become more skilled. Oh and the actors. Everyone who is involved.

When it comes to Buffy and Angel, the earlier the season, the less characters there are. Take Buffy, it's kind of shocking how simple everything is in season 1 and the show even focuses more on self-contained story episodes, monster of the week or whatever it's called. Buffy and Angel never completely abandon this structure but the over-arching season stories become more prevalent with each season. This is helped by the growing cast which stops even the self-contained episodes from feeling completely one shot. It also makes the fictional world feel more real, more alive.

(I've been on here for an hour now, doh)

With all that said - I'm on season 5 of Buffy now and even though it's great, reading Halloween Rain... makes me nostalgic for season 1... yes, I'm mental and I don't think I've totally grasped what that means yet. To be honest the book isn't long and I'm not even half way through it yet so this nostalgia largely comes from that flippin' front cover. It's like looking at a lost episode of season one which I never saw. Reading the actual book as well is like having an episode I never saw. Which shows how much I'm willing to suspend my disbelief because the book is not cannon. If someone read it when it was brand new, it probably was considered cannon but that become untrue very fast.

(BTW I just put on 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer The Album' in the hopes I could listen to it while writing this but as expected, it's the songs from the early seasons. As in, singing. I didn't mind those bits in the Bronze in the show but I wouldn't listen to them now. I'm more interested in the Score. There's literally one Score kinda track on this album, it's the last one)

My suspension of disbelief is also strong because it isn't written by the Joss Whedon, it's not even written by any of the shows writers. Besides small cannon issues which I mentioned in my previous post, there's some other problems - OK I haven't read much of it yet but I can see that the characters... actually no, I will say now they 'sound' is really quite good. I think it's just often in the back of my head that this isn't "actually" them, if you know what I mean. The characters really do sound like they do, especially Xander (so far). I don't know how they did it, it's so early in the show so I thought the writers would have got their personalities quite wrong.

It's not perfect though - So far Willow is kind of a non-character... actually that's quite fitting for season one Willow, she had a pretty one dimensional personality back then, I even wrote about that on here about a month ago. Xander is... Xander, perhaps a bit TOO much Xander, in fact. So far he hasn't had any normal lines, every line is Xanders style of joke but nothing else. He could just say some regular things sometimes, perhaps the book doesn't have time for that. The only other issue I can think of right now is what a review pointed out before I started reading it and they were right - The lingo, the slang is a little off. They say 'so' and 'way' rather a lot, though actually this is kind of nostalgic for me in a 90's era kind of way, and I can see myself getting used to saying 'so' again in my every day life, like a saddo.

They'll say things like "This is so not my way of thinking" or "This is way cool", though that last one may be too cheesy even for this book but it's just an example, they do have lines somewhere along the... lines of the that one. The thing is, to the writers credit, this kind of slang was still pretty prevalent in 1997. But contrary to popular believe the show didn't use them THAT much and also didn't have THAT many pop-culture references, which the book also does sometimes. Perhaps it was pointed out when the show was on because back then shows didn't do it much, but I'd say it became standard after Buffy and nowadays because don't even think about it if a character mentions Star Trek or whatever.

(Looks like all of my soundtrack torrents are struggling with seeds, unsurprisingly Buffy and Angel isn't exactly popular anymore)

 Back to the nostalgia thing. So yeah wow, season one books, ay, what a strange thing I didn't know existed. Another thing about the photo on the cover is that it just looks OLD, I mentioned this here when I first came across these photos online and started posting them on here. They somehow look older and dated than when you actually watch the seasons that coincide with them, the fashion, the hairstyles, they're all so 90's. And now they look even older, now that I'm on season five. The later seasons, due to the natural progression of time (haha) look more modern but I have to stop myself to remember that it's only about four years after season one. This 'oh yeah it's modern now' feeling gets shocked out of my system at the end of every episode when I see that '2000' in the credits, reminding me that it may be five whole seasons into the show but that was still twenty.. TWENTY years ago.

... I dread to look up Antony Steward Head now... is he dead now? I'm not gonna do it, not yet. I already accidentally did that with that dude from season one of Angel, who sadly died young, not long after he died in the shows story.

I keep going off on s tangent, not talking about the book. I guess I don't have anything else to say about it, for now. Wait, no there's something, even though I've pretty much already said it - It's so simple, such a little cast, just Xander, Giles, Willow and Buffy. Maybe Angel later? I don't know. Oh, Joyce, Buffy's mum is there too, of course.

Buffy Notes

I keep going back and forth between using letter and numbers don't I, oops. I gotta go but I want to say one last thing - When I first started writing on here about Buffy, I often wrote notes down while watching it. At some point I kept doing this but wasn't writing on here, then I stopped even writing the notes. Now I have a load of notes which I haven't "translated" to here, which bugs me. It would take ages to do though and like most of the stuff on here, it's mostly nonsense anyway. It's mostly me just saying "Oh I forgot so and so arrived on the show this early" or "I forgot this happened at this point". I started to see this pattern and it made me realize it may be all a bit pointless. I also ended up wanting to just watch the show without interruptions.

I'm off ciao.

Boring life stuff and Books within the Buffy Universe

I always have this urge to read my last post, how strange because it was only yesterday. Is it some kind of vanity? I wasn't going to write a blog post today but to hell with it, I've got a little time left.

Not feeling too good today which is a little odd because I felt kind of optimistic when I woke up this morning, while I was laying there before I got out of bed. However I did feel a bit unrest-ed, it's taken me way too much of my life to realise this happens when I go to bed any time after about 1am. Yeah 1pm sounds late anyway but that's fairly early for me. It seems that it doesn't matter if I stay in bed an extra hour if I go to sleep at about 2am, I still feel tired.

Feeling a bit crap today is also a bit odd because I've been in quite a good mood for quite some time now, possibly about a month or more. I've been happy with my progress with things but today, thinking about my goals makes me feel like they're incredible far away. Some of the "self-help" and philosophy stuff I watch say you should have goals but don't actually focus on them; focus on small hurdles instead. So generally I've been happy with small steps of progress but today it's all feeling a bit pointless.

Reason being? Well I'm getting that nagging sensation again that I'm focusing on the wrong things in life. Should I be out there interesting with people more? I feel lonely, I'm on my own all the time. Yeah, we're still kinda in lock-down, but there's a LOT of people out there doing things. The things I'm studying are supposed to lead to work, but all the studying is alone. I've had some drive lately but it's hard to keep that up all the time when there's no one around to help me or to teach me. We can learn a lot of things on our own instead but there's this annoying human thing we can't get rid of called emotion. Our emotions are probably simply connected to our old survival and reproduction instincts, sadly, but we can't get rid of them and we'd be soulless robots without them.

That actually makes me wonder why we bother to do thing.

And then THAT last sentence makes me realise all I'm doing is having anxiety over the ultimate question us humans always ask - What is the meaning of life? The one that everyone wonders about and struggles with, so I shouldn't bother with it right now.

BUFFY! God, anyone reading this will think I'm obsessed. I don't remember where I left off yesterday so I'll just randomly jump in.

I bought one of the first Buffy books online, it was about £3 including postage and it arrived fast. I've read a bit of it and it's not bad. I read a review of it online which said it was good so that's why I bought it. However I then checked the other "reviews" on the Buffy fan site and they were mostly very short and just basic summaries of the story. In fact that's giving them too much credit, they were more like "This is one where the Buffy gang are fighting ghosts" and that's about it.

Looking at other Buffy books online, looks like they're all cheap and most of them have pretty crap covers. The cover for this one is pretty good though, probably because is a photo that was probably taken for the book itself. Most of the others later on look like just screenshots from the show or the kind of promo photos they take on set while they're shooting.

Oh yeah, I should actually say what it's called - Halloween Rain. It's not the first book set in the Buffy universe but it's the first that takes place within the timeline of the TV series. I'm quite obsessed with consuming all media in chronological order but the earlier books didn't sound interesting to me. They're all set hundreds of years before and are about all the old vampire characters. Angel, Spike, Drusilla, etc. I really like these characters and even though coincidentally the episodes I've been watching have had flashbacks lately, I'm not interested in them when they aren't interacting with the main characters like Buffy, Xander, etc.

The flashbacks in the show are short anyway and often have some kind of thematic connection to the story that's happening in the present. I somehow doubt the books do that. Also, even though these old books are official, they aren't cannon. I assume they were at first when no one cared but then the TV shows went on for quite some time so canonical issues started to pop up - They aren't written by the shows writers, you see. Of course they aren't. However they naturally take place within certain seasons, the one I've started on starts in season 1, unsurprisingly. The Wikipedia pages give nice details about the problems and the problem with this first book was obvious from the start of me reading it.

It's about Halloween and it was written insanely early, I think it says online that only a couple of episodes had aired while it was being written. So it's before the episode in-which it's established that Halloween is in fact a quite night for evil in the Buffyverse (yes it's actually called that). Again, a nic little clever idea from the show writers but the book writers couldn't have foreseen that, they went with the typical idea that Halloween is the best night for evil to do... evil stuff.

That one is not a big issue and I can easily live with it while reading because even though they say it's a quiet night in the show, you're seeing them saying this in a Halloween episode so of course something wacky is going to happen. In fact Halloween episodes are some of my favorites.

My half an hour time limit ran out seven minutes ago, that went incredible fast. I should just get a picture of that first book and put it on here and leave. Oh I forgot to say, the weirdly old looking Buffy photos I've used on here in old posts, it's clear to me now that they're from these books. I haven't come across the other books yet though. Also there's a version of the photo taken for Halloween Rain online which doesn't have the book title on it. They're clearly stages and unlike other photos, the characters are always looking at the camera, which feels weird because they ever do that in the show, of course.

Bye.

I thought I was on here the day before yesterday but looking back, it is revealed that my last post was four days ago already, it really doesn't feel like that is the case. I guess time isn't going slowly for me anymore, like it did at the start of the lock-down.

Can't believe I blabbered so much about the virus the other day, how lame and pedestrian of me. Well I guess it would only be interesting to me and seeing as I'm likely the only one to read it in the future, it's OK. I'm also definitely only going to write for half an hour this time, I went way over the other day.

I think said in my last post that I was going to write about how my frame of mind (and I guess life) has changed so much since lock-down, I don't think I'm going to bother now though, I can't be bothered. Basically I've been feeling pretty good, which is odd for me and makes me realise even more how utterly miserable I am most of the time. Or least, I usually am until lately. I won't go into my feelings at the moment but I will say more of what has changed literally in my physical world, I'll try to keep it short because I want to write about Buffy and I'm already feeling the half an hour tick by rapidly.

I don't think I was doing these things when I was writing on here in the early days of the lock-down; I have a notebook which I've been using to list what I should do each day. It is not rigid, it can evolve and it was/is a way to also keep track of how much time I was waiting. Also to see my habits more clearly. One doesn't always see what they're doing and how much time they're spending on said things all the time, until one writes them down. Or, I guess, if you recorded every second of your days like you're on a reality TV show like Big Brother. And yes I know is an old school reference to a show which was massive but is now virtually dead. I think it's still around but last time I heard, it's been relegated to a Freeview channel somewhere. Freeview also sounding very old fashioned to me now, too.

So yeah I do these lists and they've really helped. I've become more productive, I've been drawing, learning how to make music, learning how to make overlays for Streamlabs OBS and re-setting up everything to stream again. I did used to do it but I totally re-installed everyone on my PC about a month ago because it was getting kinda slow.

I also sorted out my messy email inbox, I give 30 minutes a day to keeping the flat tidy, I have a 1 minute power nap in the middle of the day and I commit 15 minutes a day to sorting out all my files which are on my PC and external hard drives. I think that last one will take forever at that pace but I feel it's a good idea not to give too much time to non-essential or non-learning things. Tidying files is slightly useful in the long run but it's not life threatening and one could live the rest of their life without having all their files neatly sorted and named properly.

I also only go on social media for 15 minutes a day although it's been more like half an hour a day for the past week, sometimes longer. That's not too bad though. I'm doing this because it genuinely stresses me out. I like talking to friends but, well, it's hard to explain. Just look up on YouTube why social media and smart phones are bad. I feel like some would think those videos are stupid but those issues they explain are so real for me that it's insane, and these problems started for me before I'd ever known others had similar issues.

Oh also I've been working out more, strangely, more than I used to when I went to the gym. Which is perhaps quite telling especially considering the fact that I was already quite happy with the amount of time I was spending at said gym. I think there's some other things I've been doing but I feel like moving on now, perhaps I'll talk about them another day.

One thing that hasn't changed much is me watching Buffy at night, it's my wind down time. I switch off my phone (which I rarely look at now anyway and I uninstalled Messenger again though not entirely to avoid Messenger - my phone is dying so can't handle Messenger anymore) and sit on the sofa in front of the biggest CRT I have. Yeah it's that one with the dodgy speaker but I've found out I don't even have to hit it often, it just comes on itself quite quickly. Also I feel like it goes oddly dark sometimes but it's fine, it's not bad. I mean we all never used to care that much about the differing qualities between CRT's back in the day.

I have so much to say but my alarm is deffo going to go off soon. I'm on season 5 of Buffy now so I'm quite a way through it, there's 7 seasons in all. I started watching Angel as well, according to the order of its and Buffy's original release - Season 1 of Angel started at the beginning of season 4 of Buffy, so I'm now on season 2 of Angel. I had a quick look online when I started Angel, looks like it was aired on TV on the same week as Buffy, Buffy going first. No wait, it may have actually been the same night each week with Angel airing after Buffy. I don't know if they kept that up but I'm probably going to follow that way until I've seen them all. In other words, I watch one episode of Angel after I've seen one episode of Buffy.

I have so much to say about these wonderful shows but my time is up and guess what, I'm going to watch some of them now. There's so many new or newish films and TV shows that I perhaps should watch instead, but no, I'm going to possible pull myself even further away from people now. What I mean by that is media is a good way to connect with others, it's a good thing to talk about, even can be a good ice breaker - "Hay, did you see the new ep of...". I've often struggled to find things to talk to people about but TV and film has helped me out a lot. But possibly no more, because I'm watching an ancient show. I'm sure a lot of people think of it as ancient, anyway. What give me a weird feeling is that season 5 of Buffy feels more modern than season 1 (of course) but even season 5 is... 20 years old!

Oh god.

I'm off, ciao.