I didn’t intend this to be my first ever Sunday night stuff but I forgot to schedule this post which I spent last night writing and then I went to work and…
Here we are.
I think by posting every Thursday/Sunday I’m causing time to speed up. How can it be Sunday again? How it can be time to sit down and right this post again? One minute I’ll be writing about BROCKHAMPTON and the next minute they’ll be putting me in the ground, or the incinerator, or firing me into space…or whatever they’ll do with our bodies in however many decades we have on this cursed Earth.
ANYWAY
Let’s take a look at all the stuff that I’ve been using to distract me from existential horror this week…
Reading…
I’m struggling with my reading at the minute. Sure I’m busy, but I don’t think that’s it. I just can’t get into anything. Clash of Kings sits on the side, a few chapters down. The Shining rests on the arm of the sofa, inviting me in. I just don’t feel the urge. I think it’s down to the expectation I have of these famous books. It’s Game of Thrones! It’s Stephen King! They’re supposed to be good. But are they capable of surprising me? They’re so baked into the pop culture zeitgeist it feels as if I’ve already read them. I think to get me back into the reading groove I need to find something smaller, a little more unexpected and unpredictable.
Off to the second-hand book shop then, and I’ll report back next week.
Playing…
The Dragon Quest XI demo is out on Switch! Hotline Miami is out on Switch! Devil May Cry 5 on Game Pass! Kingdom Come Deliverance on Game Pass! Ape Out on Game Pass!
That should keep me busy until Gears of War 5, which comes out September 10, but where do I start? What do I play? What I write about? For today let’s just talk about Dragon Quest.
Oh wait sorry I’m being a little informal.
Dragon Quest IX S: Echoes of an Elusive Age – Definitive Edition is its full name, and it is the first Dragon Quest game that I’ve ever played. About ten minutes into the demo I was completely sold. Story wise it’s standard JRPG fare, and even action wise, soundtrack wise, art style wise…but it’s all just executed with perfection. It bursts with colour, sings with personality. It begs you to settle in and waste your day with it, which is exactly what I want from any RPG. An hour in and I was looking up the full release date and getting disappointed when I saw that I had over a month until I could get my teeth into the full version.
Still, all the above should keep me more than occupied.
Listening to…
BROCKHAMPTON. GINGER. It’s sounding damn good so far. Have they recaptured the sounds which made them so exciting during the SATURATION trilogy? No, and they won’t. Perhaps they shouldn’t. I can tell you right now that GINGER is not a perfect album, but then I don’t know what a perfect album from a group as purposeful chaotic and disjointed as BROCKHAMPTON would sound.
All I know is that on GINGER the group delivers a group of sometimes pretty, sometimes catchy, and sometimes banging songs united by themes of loneliness, isolation, and self-reflection. It might not be album of the year, but it’s going to be on heavy rotation in my car for the remainder of the late summer.
Watching…
Nothing, really. Unsurprisingly I don’t feel anywhere near as bad about this as I do about my lack of reading. Still, I’ve been missing some exciting new movies which have hit cinemas recently, and I most definitely do not want to miss Once Upon a time in Hollywood… which has only just come out in the UK.
There is one other thing I’m excited about watching though…
The Mandalorian trailer is grade-A. Great score. Great tension. IG-88. A stormtrooper getting cut in half by a blast door. WERNER HERZOG. Phew. There is a lot coming to Disney Plus, but this is the first thing which has convinced me to give it a go…at least long enough to watch the whole series, it remains to be seen whether or not I hang around for anything else.
Running…
I’m back, I think. I’ve ran six times over five days, nice and steady, nothing too long, nothing too crazy. My hip isn’t on fire, my legs are functioning, I’m not terribly depressed by not being able to hit the road. Saying that, there’s still a hard journey to be taken to get me back on track to run the half-marathon in under-90 minutes, but I’m not going to be harsh on myself if I can’t quite nail that target as this is now my second week of reduced training, on top of a week where I wasn’t able to do anything at all.
And that’ll do for this week! I’m going back to my
E X I S T E N T I A L
D R E A D
See ya!
run into words 