Author: Dave VR

It’s only money, mostly

Everyone has money problems. More money, more problems, right?

I tell myself it’s just a game. Life is just a game.

It will throw crap at you left, right, and center. All day long, every fricking day.

The trick is to just play the game. Earn a living, pay the bills, enjoy life as best as you are able.

I used to think that you must be able to reach a point where you have enough money not to care. To be financially secure enough that if a problem occurs, whatever it may be, that you can just pay your way through it.

But no. There are always problems that can cause stress, anxiety, even depression, no matter how much money you have.

So I continue to play the game of life and try not to stress about stuff. It’s only money. Mostly.

Virtual currency

In a supermarket seeing that wall of cards. Virtual currency. E-bucks, V-bucks, whatever. Digital credits for virtual games.

What a con.

Not only do they get your money when you buy the game, they also make you pay to live in the game world. In the real world you are also paying for the machine to run the game, and the electricity to power it. I wonder if people have actually calculated how much it actually costs them to play a game.

Me. I didn’t like to spend money on something I can’t touch. I like to hold a game cartridge or disc. I like to get something you can hold for my coin. I’m old school I guess. Kids today think it’s nothing to spend their money on virtual currency then spend it all on new clothes and accessories for their avatar while they wear old clothes in the real world.

I watch an old lady point at the wall of cards asking her daughter which one to get for her grandson. He plays Fortnite mother, she replies. The lady looks back at the cards none the wiser.

The cyberpunk who hates the city

I grew up in a large town. There were a lot of people, buildings, vehicles, and light pollution. I worked in tech and worked at big corporations. I read Cyberpunk by Gibson, Sterling, Rucker et al. I used computers and gadgets daily.

Today I find myself in a city and I hate it.

I hate the noise, the people, the traffic, the hustle and bustle, and the light pollution.

It’s too much.

I miss the countryside. The quiet. The sound of the leaves on the breeze, the birds in the trees, the combine in the distance field. No light pollution, only stars as far as I can see.

I still love my tech. I have multiple gadgets on me at all times. I remain connected to the noise, but digitally, not in the analogue. It’s there when I need it. To identify a plant, plan a walk, or to sit down and type some thoughts.

I’m still a cyberpunk at heart, but one that hates the city.

Not off grid. On the edge. An edge runner.

Listening to the rain

I’m sitting here by an open sash window listening to the rain.

I booked a holiday let in a house built many centuries ago with the top two floors a luxury let above the high street of a historic market town. I have a glass of red wine in one hand and I’m listening to the pleasant sounds of the rain.

In my other hand I hold my mobile with the BBC weather app open. It proudly shows me that there is zero percent chance of rain at my current location. It’s wrong and I’m happy that it’s wrong.

This app is rarely right. I might as well consult the wise old elf from the Magic Kingdom for a weather forecast. He’ll be more right than this app. I don’t know why I haven’t uninstalled it. The amount of times it has predicted a good old storm with thunder and lightning, only for it to be clear skies with absolutely no activity. Oh the disappointment.

The cafe owner across the street starts to clear up as the last of her patrons head home. I hear a few merry people singing in the distance as I take another sip from my glass, the gentle cadence of the rain hitting the cobbles below is soothing. I put the phone away and toast the BBC weather app for being pleasantly wrong yet again as I listen to the rain that should not be.

The art of complaining

There was this guy once, Michael Winner, who was a master at the art of complaining. He would not bat an eyelid at complaining to a waiter if there was something wrong with his meal. Surprising really as it’s not the British way. We just accept the mediocre service and move on. Well, in-person anyway. Online is another thing. The beauty of anonymity and all that.

The reason I started thinking about this is because I’ve received some really bad service recently. Why is that? High prices but slow service and bad quality food or products. It’s as if some businesses don’t even care. Once they have your money you can get lost. Not happy? Hard luck!

Just show the British stiff upper lip and carry on.

Not me. I’ve started complaining. I’m fully embracing my grumpy old man stage of life. If I’m not happy they will hear about it.

Not that I’m getting refunds or apologies. Nope. I need to master my technique more. Or maybe shop where people actually give a damn.

Characters left hanging

I hate it when you have invested a lot of time in a TV show, following the complex plot and all the characters and then the show ends, leaving you hanging. Not knowing what happened next. How did the character’s lives pan out? There’s no more episodes, no more insight, just a hard, abrupt, end. As if you were a voyeur observing a life and then your window closed and there is no more for you. The character’s life continued without you knowing what happened next.

Some finish off their characters’ stories with leaked scripts post cancellation, or the stories continue in other media such as books or comics. Most end though, never to continue. Fan fiction satiates some, others, like me, are left with nothing. An investment with no end.

Generous car parking spaces

This annoys me so much: The size of your average car parking space in the UK.

They haven’t updated the dimensions in decades, yet cars have gotten bigger. You have to be an expert at parking to be able to fit your car in a space and be able to get out. My car is so long that the front and back overlap the white lines and the sides are in, but only just. If anyone parks next to me I can’t open the doors.

Parking spaces are worth a fortune in many towns. So owners of car parks are happy not to increase the size of the spaces, as more spaces means more money. God forbid anyone should create spaces big enough for the vehicle and so you can open all doors and the boot. The amount of times my boot opens into a hedge or I’m forced to choose which side the doors should open on.

I’ve seen SUVs park in two spaces so that the occupants can get out. People leave notes under their wipers to point out the terrible parking, but what choice do they have? Cars have gotten bigger and the places to put them have not. Move with the times you vehicle real estate moguls!

Let’s start a campaign for bigger parking spaces.

Kingpin

I have old game discs lying around. I even have a few floppies, albeit they are rarely used thanks to emulators, and my last floppy drive having developed the click of death. I keep only the games that I enjoy, and continue to do so. Ones with a journey, a campaign, a linear storyline with entertaining gameplay.

Games with titles such as Kingpin, Cadaver, Max Payne, Half Life, and the more recent The Last of Us, and Uncharted. All offering virtual escapism for hours on end. With well trodden familiar territory. I’ve lost count how many times I’ve completed Kingpin. Yet despite the aging graphics, it still entertains me. Occasionally It’ll replay Doom, Quake, Duke Nukem, and other 90s FPS titles, but Kingpin remains my favourite.

I’ve played mods and have my favourites, especially for Max Payne. New Dawn leads by far. I know the levels inside-out. Some games I’ve played so many times that I’ve gone way beyond a hundred percent completion, beyond easter eggs, and testing boundaries, to testing how the games handle the unexpected. Most stand the test of time. My hats off to their QAs.

I’ve dipped back into point and click revisiting Monkey Island, the Amazon Queen, Enchantia, and Kyrandia. Said hi to Simon, Larry, Sam and Max. Dropped in on top-down with the early GTA and very early Commando. And I’ve emulated the Valhalla Classics. Yet I keep coming back to my well-worn Kingpin disc. I’ve replayed this at least once every decade, if not more. Maybe every half-decade. I keep coming back to it. The forgotten classic.

What games have stood the test of time with you? 

Self-fulfilling prophecy

It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I hate that term, but it’s true.

Anxiety attacks. You try to avoid them but the thought of them happening only sets in motion a path that leads to their happening. Self-fulfilling.

Watching your heart rate after a workout. It’s not coming down during cooldown. So you stress about it and your heart rate increases. Self-fulfilling.

Learning to derail self-fulfilling prophecies is hard. But it’s worth it if you succeed. To control yourself, your thoughts, your mind. Tell yourself it will happen and hopefully it will be self-fulfilling.

Watching a business fail

I’ve worked both good and bad contracts. I’ve seen what works and what doesn’t. I’ve seen great successes and bad failures. Sometimes really bad failures. That no matter what you say or do you can’t prevent the inevitable. So you watch, you observe, you learn.

There are case studies on failed businesses that you can study. There are even books, like Boo Hoo. People like to read about the success stories, not the failures. Read both. A balanced education is good. It’s far cheaper to learn from other people’s mistakes.

Living through the fall of a business can be interesting. Especially if you have no skin in the game, and you are financially secure, and confident in your skill-set’s marketability. You learn to spot the signs. Customers going quiet on you, senior management updating their LinkedIn profiles, less orders coming in, shareholder changes, whispering in corridors, linchpins leaving, less work coming your way.

As the topple starts you begin to see moves to stop the fall. Redundancies, reduced budgets, delayed payments, and shelved projects. Once everyone was asked to take a pay cut. Temporary of course. Just to help keep the company going.

Then the fall happens. Sadness follows. Why oh why? After all you put in. You weren’t steering. You were merely a cog. Hopefully a well paid one. One that will fit nicely into another company. One that hopefully won’t fail.