Thursday 22 July 2010

Endlessly Chasing That Dream

As an addition to the previous post on recent movies I have seen, I'd like to add one more: G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra. I'm pretty sure everyone is familiar with good ol' Joe, being the sickeningly stereotypical pure-blooded American hero fighting against the pure Evil of the Cobra organization. Any similarities between this story and the two Cold War sides are of course purely coincidental.

Anyway, recently there was another 'get three DVDs for cheap' action at some store and Pieter grabbed this movie in a moment of pure insanity. Last Sunday we popped the DVD into the player and settled in for an hour and some of poor acting and over the top action. Instead we got what has to be one of the better, more balanced and actually funny action movies Hollywood has churned out during the past twenty years. While the premise of the movie is somewhat outlandish as usual (some super weapon of mass-destruction based on nano-bots getting stolen), the rest of the technology seems fairly realistic, the dialogue and acting are decent to good and the action scenes don't seem designed to send every epileptic patient within a kilometer radius directly into shock. All in all a very pleasant surprise and very much a recommendation.

Moving on, yesterday I had an appointment with that house painter regarding their new website. The appointment went well, I went back home to create the contract and generate the site skeleton so that I could finish the design the next design after I got the art sent to me. Instead I got a phonecall from informing that someone they know had offered to make the site for free. This was pretty disappointing, especially considering that it seemed pretty much a done deal already. As Pieter commented, it would be like him calling that house painter and informing him that an uncle of him was willing to paint his house for free instead of having him come over for a multi-thousand Euro fee.

Anyway, I have no idea what the resulting site will now look like, how they'll do maintenance and how many security holes will be built into the code. To be honest I have very little confidence in professional webdevelopers already, let alone in amateurs. Not saying they're wrong to choose this option, just that I would consider more factors than just the initial price. At any rate I guess I shouldn't care, but emotionally it fit well enough into the 'disappointment' trigger that I'm still feeling kind of sick thinking back at it.

Talking about triggers, I got Jiawan from the UMCG hospital recommending me one psychotherapist for EMDR therapy. I still haven't received a response from that therapist, though, even after waiting for a few days. When it comes down to it, however, I find that I have a very strong reluctance against actually seeing a therapist. This while EMDR therapy sounds like a good idea. I seem to combine psychologists, psychiatrists and therapists into one big pile, apparently, and since especially the former have done extensive emotional damage over the past years I can find absolutely no trust for such people.

Add to this that it's really hard to find a therapist who actually takes on new patients, is in a location which is somewhat accessible via public transport, and with whom I could actually form a bond, it means that I could spend this and next year searching for a therapist. It's kind of like with starting a relationship; I have been hurt too often in the past to dedicate myself to such a thing, even though it would probably be a good idea. For this reason that I can't make myself work on finding an EMDR therapist. The stress it gives me is just too much, even if it sounds terribly ironic. I guess my life is just one big, bloody cesspit of irony.

I'm sure everyone knows that dream in which one keeps chasing that one thing or person one most cares about. In this case it's not a dream, and the subject of my devotion is having a proper life.

In the end I guess that the only bright spot in my life at this point is that my work is going well. The new game concept for TileWars is basic enough that progress is quick and I have high hopes that we'll be producing something playable in a month's time or so.


Maya

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