i'm free

and freedom tastes of reality.

it's interesting playing a computer game when you're playing against the computer - not just the baddies, but against the whole thing. i had to finish kotor, to get it out of my system. which made all the references to 'giving in to the dark side' in the game more pertinant. if i was strong, i would have just unplugged the console and put it back in it's box. if i was really strong, i'd have left it right there in plain view, ready to go at any minute but i'd be choosing not to use it. we have to test ourselves sometimes. one way to not give into temptation is to avoid it, but then we'll never know if we'd be able to resist it when it strikes. but i was weak; the only way i could get out of kotor was to go through it. i played over thirty hours in a week. i've felt like a complete junkie, and i'm not sure if that's because i think of myself as one or not.

the best thing in the game, for me, as a new games journalist, was when i killed the annoying heads of the sith academy, i really enjoyed it. i felt they really deserved to be cut down. and that scared me.

but now it's over and i can get back to my life.
but there's more out there.. i saw kotor 2 for a tenner in fobidden planet. halo's sitting right there.

so yesterday i didn't leave the house much. upon returning from the front door, to see 'what that ruckus was about', someone was putting up a paper sign pointing to their flat, with 'eurovision 2006' printed on it. having faith in coincidence, and no-one else to watch it with (i imagine i could have gone 'home' this weekend, but i don't know, because i haven't spoken to my parents for.. a while, and i'm frankly too embarressed about my life to call them), and the only alternative being to go out to chorlton to watch a spacemen 3 tribute band (friend of a friend), i went along. what a party. the guy, a slightly camp irish, was obviously a complete euro-fetishist, and i made up the numbers to a convienient 25. there was booze, a large flat screen digital telly, and enough people to make up the £2 sweepstake (i drew bosnia-herzogovina, and for a moment early on in the voting, it looked like i might have been in with the 50 quid jackpot). it was lovely, but after it finished, the 'eurovision classics' cd (possibly compiled by the man himself) went on, and i think it became a little too camp for comfort i left and went three doors down to my place, listened to eels and re-read animal man again.