Bechuga

My head is too big for hats :(

Not a problem of relating, it's a problem of being boring. Not that I find it a problem: I am quite happy here in my little bubble. In that way, it's other peoples problem to solve.

1) Don't own television, nor will I ever 2) I don't do irony (unless I have a creased shirt) 3) 'So bad it's good' television / films make me angry. Why would you watch something you know is bad? I know that's the point but still. I have barely enough time for the good stuff in life, so why waste it watching The Room ten times over? (Like a friend who watches it once a month if not more and I am open mouthed in horror at) Can you see why I'm boring yet

you either find some common ground you can build a convo upon or talk about yourselves in turns. Or just go full late night presenter and let the other person do the talking, "tell me more" etc. Maybe give up altogether Ask questions. People always want to talk about themselves. The question / dilemma was mentioned mostly in jest but advice is welcomed regardless. Getting them to talk about themselves is my general approach--and most people don't give a shit about whatever it is I do in my flat so they're not exactly pursuing me conversationally--but it comes down to all the things I can quite happily talk about--music, books, games, creative endeavours etc--are none of the things most of my visitors care about, being more interested in The Only Way Is Essex type social life drama and who's fucked who, which I am sure is fun but not on my radar. In particular, I found not watching television / movies shuts down 90% of all conversational topics. especially with my little brother who does little else than go the cinema. So it's not really boring in the sense that I am unable to talk--I can happily talk anyone to death as people in CHATMM may have noticed, and I am boring there too--but when it comes to my visitors, we move in too differently shaped circles to talk in depth about anything. And any steps to readdress this--watching films, going out and getting drunk every night--are not exactly worth it. I love my visitors but I am merely aware of how little common ground there is between us, which is all the more prominent when silence takes over. (That said, people have told me they like coming to my place because it is peaceful and quiet, plus I always have plenty of tea / biscuits to eat so maybe my boringness is the reason they came?) Hide the jigsaw puzzle. Put a collection of sex toys on the coffee table and see what happens. I suspect that they think the jigsaw puzzle is a sex toy...

I'm incredibly boring and all visitors to my flat start doing the jigsaw I leave on my coffee table not long after arriving realising conversation with me is boring. How does one be interesting / have a life?

Broke 50% of Against the Day or, as I call it, Against the Pages. Also Darkmans is very...odd. Nicola Barker might end up my favourite English novelist. Funny that you mention that passage as it's probably the first that comes in to my mind when i think of Vineland. 'If patterns of ones and zeros were "like" patterns of human lives and deaths, if everything about an individual could be represented in a computer record by a long string of ones and zeros, then what kind of creature would be represented by a long string of lives and deaths?' Goddamn. Good shit.

Vineland to me is summed up thus: it's a three hundred page flashback with a sixty page conclusion. And the section where he compared the states of being alive and dead to that of binary codes, and 'what kind of programme was the government creating out of the ones and zeroes of all the dead' was a highlight for me. Definitely underrated and misunderstood. Hope he publishes one more before he passes on!

You'll have a good time! Mason & Dixon are a regular pair of knuckleheads. I still think Vineland is super underrated. All the talk I hear of it is that it's bad but it's just as well made as anything else he's done.

Gravity's Painbow 410 pages into Against the Day, 660 to go...

Pre-ordered Jerusalem by Alan Moore. The hardcover is 1200 pages. *orders wrist braces*

There really should be more Aphex stuff on Mu (obviously won't), seems like it would be a good match.

Pre-ordered blue

Quality Visual Novel

How much money have you lost so far on these Tool bets?

Lick fingertips > extra grip > open bag > produce safely bagged > suicide averted

Downloaded Pay Day 2 again, might as well delete all my other games. Welp.

i recently brought 2 more of his (Colorless Tazaki and What I Talk About When I Talk About Running). something about his stuff keeps pulling me back in despite me never being sure if i like him or not. i enjoyed South of the Border right up until the end - it ends just when it gets going and it doesn't answer anything (typical Murakami). No-one quite does melancholy that isn't teenage angst type pretentiousness like Murakami. Tsuru Tazaki I loved, even read 75% of it in one night until it was finished and felt ruined, but in a good way. Should really get onto reading Wind-Up Bird Chronicle / Norwegian Wood. Murakami doesn't resolve certain stuff, but I feel that is the point, especially with something like After Dark or (my favourite heartbreaking book) Sputnik Sweetheart. It does make me scared to read him, because he inflicts such perfect psychic damage on me, but I keep coming back too. Spoiler: Tazaki does not feature many, if any cats. Does feature a vinyl record. And salad.

Finished Purity by Franzen. Not as good as Corrections / Freedom (no surprise, they were excellent) but it was definitely enjoyable. Started on South of the Border by Haruki Murakami and is looking to be as melancholic as his other work. And short too, which is a plus! Too many eight hundred pages books to read atm. That's a lot of what if's. And my current thinking is an uncontrollable superintelligence has GOT to be better than the UK Conservatives. Even if they implement a system of blocking out the sun for their power source: the weather's shit enough as it is. edit: the quantum mechanics confusion reminds me of when I listened to the Dalai Lama's autobiography, read by Richard Gere. When the book gets to the section about quantum physics--which the Dalai is well versed in--Richard Gere can be heard audibly struggling to process what he is reading aloud. Quite amusing, worth a listen (and not just because the book is good).