Slow Burn

Went for my first run in ages this week. It went OK, but alas my knee still doesn't feel 100%. Time, as they say, heals all wounds...but it's taking longer than I'd like to sort this particular ailment. More physio tomorrow, though, so hopefully progress will rear it's bulbous and frightful head. Hmmm...what else?! Well, I read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein over the course of two nights, which is the quickest it's ever taken me to read a full-length novel. OK, it's not exactly War & Peace (actually - has anyone actually ever read that book...and if they have, is it really so long as to warrant an entire cliche be named after it?!) as it only weighs in at 214 pages...but still, the fact that I sat there and read for hours on end is surely an attestation to it's quality. Bit melancholy in places like, and that didn't really help my current frame of mind...but yeah, it's a great read. Wouldn't mind seeking out the recent (well 1990s) film adaptation now and seeing how faithful it is to the novel.

Also this week, I've sat through the mindless bilge that is Gamer. It's got Gerrard Butler in it, and it's about humans who get controlled by other humans in a Gears of War-style deathmatch in order to win their freedom. Yawn. Haven't we seen similar themes umpteen times before? Recent takes on the idea such as Surrogates and Avatar instantly spring to mind and indeed, even one of my short film ideas (that remained on the drawing board due to it's been there, done that nature) while at University was a project titled 'Game Over,' which, funnily enough told the familiar tale of gamers who played a video deathmatch and who were killed in reality if their avatar in the game came a cropper. Like I said, "yawn."

And apart from the usual crap like going to the gym, eating noodles infused with hotdog sausages, and sleeping...I have done very little else of interest. That's the problem with working these night shifts - I'm either sat in work for 12 hours through the night, in bed, in the gym...or back at work again! Not an ideal situation, really, and ultimately excruciatingly monotonous. But what can you do? I don't expect I'll be doing anything more interesting over the coming week either, seeing as I have just enough money to sustain life through frugal food shoppage, but all things come to pass. That's the PMA (positive mental attitude) kicking in. If I actually spoke the truth about how fucking pissed off I am, and how I'd like nothing more than to run naked through a shopping centre with a pump action shotgun...well, I'd probably find myself locked up under some kind of obscure terror/mental health act. And that just simply would not do. So I have four nights left of incredible boredom and eye-burning tiredness to look forward to. In the immortal words of Tony the Tiger: Grrrrreat.