Mattalogue; The Egg.

With a small amount of shock and upset I realised something last night. Next year marks the tenth anniversary of me deciding I should become a writer. Which is odd considering that in that ten years time I’ve only really been writing for four of them. And only really writing to a passable degree for the last…I dunno, never.

But, it got me thinking. What was the even that triggered me choosing this? Then I remembered, it was a walk, in the Scottish hills.

I was lagging behind as always, my granddad storming ahead, desperate to see birds and ‘the view’. I was more interested in getting back at 3:40 for Digimon and it was already 3:10. Pre-adolescent rage bubbled under my skin and I picked up a stick, trailing it in the dirt track we so dutifully followed.

I swished it around periodically, hoping to sabotage my Grandad’s bird watching. Turns out birds aren’t intimidated by a 12 year old idiot-child waving a stick around. Realising I was defeated and wouldn’t be able to get back in time to watch my favourite show of the year, I sulked even harder.

I looked at my feet and the dirt, as if I was refusing to take in the sheer beauty of the land that surrounded us. I focused on the stick as it left an outline in the path behind me…in my head, it was a sword. A scimitar more precisely, probably because the stick was curved. It was then that my imagination fired off. I stopped sulking...and began to think.

Who was holding this sword? Not me certainly, I could barely hold a kitchen knife without shaking, partially through cowardice and partly thanks being ‘diseased’ with dyspraxia. I imagined a it would be a big creature, thanks to a childhood love of the subject, my head seemed to fill the blank in with a Dinosaur. What kind of Dinosaur you ask? Well a ‘raptor’ of course.

(note…as something of an amateur palaeontologist, I know all too well that ‘raptor’ is NOT what you call that particular kind of extinct reptile and that a raptor is indeed a bird of prey).

I saw this 'raptor' stood upright, tailless and intelligent, like you or I (well, you at least). He held the sword firmly in his left hand, but on his face I imagined an expression of hopelessness.

But why was he like that? I asked myself. In my head I seemed to automatically generate a backstory for him, he was a leader who had won a war and had tried to return to his village. Only to discover it had been razed to the ground by the remainder of his enemy.

On the hillside next to me, I imagined the ashen wreck of what had once been this warriors home. But who had done this? Humans, of course.

By this point I was excited to the point of actually wanting to write it down. I’d never reached that point before in my life. I’d always hated writing, thanks to my dyspraxia I’d always been behind and in pain, not that I use it as a crutch for my own failings of course…

But anyway, I envisioned a name for this up till then nameless character. Tethys Eem.

I imagined what was going through his head, the guilt, the inconsolable rage and the desire to end it all there and then. I dropped the stick as my imaginary companion dropped his sword. I saw him begging a God that I’d never heard of for someone to be alive, some member of his village to have survived…

It was then that I realised I had, not only a hero, or a race. But a story.

...and then two come at once! Not quite a poem, not quite a story.

The Word and He Who Spoke It.

There was once a man, cunning as he was evil

Blessed by the darkness and singed by the light

He united the men and enslaved the women

The virtues of the land were accredited to his love

The pain and toil, his disfavour,

The blame all yours.

He sat atop the tower of clouds

With a foundation of bones

Upon the mountain of madness.

They followed his will,

Lived by his morals, for fear of damnation

Crushed under foot

His standard looming over every town

His image in every room

Servitude measured in fear

To love another was to hate him

He gave your face its smile

Your cheeks were blessed with his tears

The fathers would beat their daughters

To the rhythm of his heartbeat

And the mothers scald their sons with his tongue

His footsteps echoed doom,

While his name rhymed with thirst

The fingers of his empire raped the land

And flexed their grasp

Day by day, year by year.

Driven by his armies of ‘Maybes’ and ‘One days’.

All marching to The Word.

The Word uttered with a sneer and wink

From the crack lips of our tyrant king

And The Word,

was ‘love’.

Mattalogue; Promises, Goals and Curiously Strong Mints

Well, well, well dear reader. I am infact alive. I know I’ve not made an entry on this infernal thing for a good while, but I’ve been busy.

Was that an effective lie? I’ve been trying them out lately. Y’know the kind of situation, where you’re all civil and nice to someone, but inside you’re secretly screaming obscenities at them and their mother. That kind of lie.

Anyway, lifes been rather strange lately, don’t get me wrong. It’s been good, but just, very very strange. But to say any more on the matter in such a public place would be ‘controversial’.

Christmas was rather impressive for me this time around, not only did I receive a box of Marks and Spencers ‘Curiously strong mints’ (the ‘curiously’ in the title makes me think they’re alluding to some mysterious ingredient, more than likely poor people), the new COD game (the unwrapping of which heralded me waving goodbye to sunlight and social interaction) and perhaps most importantly. A Kindle. Within hours I’d bonded with him and his pretty E-ink face and I named him Kevin Sorbo…after the well known Hercules/reading/technology connection.

Anyway, New Year, New Matt. So the annual tradition of setting aside goals and breaking them all by the 2^nd of January begins. Seeing as such goals will no doubt be broken I might as well post them here.

1. Lose the weight. - Cause seriously, no man needs this many spare tires

2. Get one of these ‘job’ things. - Despite my vast disinterest in the thing, apparently money is necessary to live.

3. Get a haircut.- Save money on shampoo

4. Keep that special person happy. - I hope to keep this goal going at least.

5. Write down stuff! – Maybe even have Land of the Poisoned Skies half done by this time next year. Maybe fully done, uni permitting.

6. Pass Uni again- So far there have been no great victories, only small defeats.

7. Be a nicer person – Something everyone could work towards. Well, except you of course.

8. Make use of Kevin Sorbo and read more- No point trying to be a writer if you only read books with pop-up flaps.

Anyway, before I sign off, I wrote a full three chapters of my ‘project’ yesterday. I was quite impressed, till I realised they were from Book 2 (Filling The Void), not Book 1. But hey, whoever did things chronologically?

I’m off to shoot Asian people in the face now. Toodles!

Mattalogue; Living the Xbox Live 'Life'.

A couple of weeks ago I waved goodbye to the greatest thing that happened to me since left handed can openers. No it wasn’t my collection of classic sitcoms, rather a certain someone sodded off the Italy for a month to teach kids how to swear in English. Half way there and I’m still experiencing withdrawal symptoms, it’s quite jarring talking to someone nearly every day for 8 months then suddenly stopping. Like suddenly becoming deaf the day before a new Maiden albums out.

So what did I do the day after she departed for the great boot shaped former empire? Blub uncontrollably? Sit in the dark covered in Vaseline while looking at pictures of her? Write a whingey blog/poem/story?

Nope!

In fact I did something rather more telling and nerdilicious. I got Xbox Live.

Yes that’s right, I finally bowed to the ‘man’ and paid money to unlock something already installed. Although that’s par for the course with an Xbox. If you so much as want to change your name it’ll cost you, then as soon as you press the ‘confirm’ button, hey presto! There it is! Normally I don’t like laying into Bill Gates, it’s the equivalent of shooting the morbidly obese kid at paintball. Anyone can do it and joining in leaves me devoid of ammo for the less obvious targets. Like a passing Ant McPartlin –if you’re too young…look it up- or that guy who’s allergic to paint. Not that I'm bashing the Xbox itself. It has games! It's just been her first anniversary as my official play thing, maybe we can squeeze another 12 months in before she gets a red ring.

But anyway! On with the story, my first xbox live experience took place on none other than Red Dead Redemption. If you’re one of the 2 people who doesn’t have it (the other being the blind kid…he tripped up and fell down a mineshaft) then I highly recommend it for the single player alone. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll rage at the half thought out Scrappy character you play in the end.

So there I was, in the vast expanse of the American west with nothing on my side but a donkey and a pistol you couldn’t kill a rabbit with. For the first few times I played, I totally avoided other people. It appears that even on Xbox Live I’m an anti-social smegger. Whenever someone came towards me or invited me to join their ‘posse’ I would scarper away, my donkey placed firmly between my legs. Of course, anti-social tendencies didn’t prevent me from making a couple of enemies.

I was casually minding my own business, taking pot shots at two gangs beefing it out over a ‘Zebra-Donkey’. Don’t bore me with the biological impossibilities. All you need to know is it’s awesome. So naturally, while the two sides were duking it out, I snuck up and stole the donkey. Big mistake.

One person seemed to take offense to this, and spent the rest of the session chasing me down with their ridiculously over powered arsenal. Taking back the ‘Zebra Donkey’ didn’t seem to be enough for them. Like Richard Kimble I was hunted down across the United States, and this person was Tommy Leet J0nez. Eventually the chase ended the only way it could. By me pressing ‘quit’ and making myself a cup of tea.

I learned a valuable lesson that day. If someone has marked themselves as an ‘Underground’ gamer…get the hell out of there because they WILL be a douche. I really want to try out COD fer 2 on Live too, however I'm slightly intimidated by the fact that people use mics in the game. I find there to be something quite creepy about shooting virtual people in the face, then hearing the voice of a nine year old telling me to "get out of [his] town" or just opting for a frustrated banshee screech.

Needless to say, I’m looking forward to returning to Uni. I’m pretty sure I’ve done more work this summer than I ever did last year. But hey, next years gonna be different. The grades actually matter. Which means I’m much more likely to fail. Oh and the small matter of that special person returning. I should probably bathe.

Mattalogue; Summer, Elephants and Green Buttocks.

Summer! The season of music festivals, BBQ’s, 90 minute movies with 88 minutes of explosions and 2 of gratuitous cleavage shots and of course shirtless men. It’s an oft’ referenced cliché of us Brits, if the sun makes an appearance for more than a minute you’ll find us all outside. Leaving nothing to the imagination, pale spare tyres squeezing themselves out of tight tracksuit bottoms. Desperate for their fix of UV.

I’ve never found tans that appealing myself, which is irritating because I always wind up with one, even when I didn’t want to. No, especially when I didn’t want to. I’ll never forget when I came back from my Christmas Holiday in South Africa, people at school were amazed (and perhaps just a little bit jealous) that I had a wonderful golden tan in January. I say ‘wonderful’ it stopped quite abruptly just above my elbows and just below the knees. But I’m pretty sure they have to as part of a British law.

Currently I’m in the town that time forget once more, doing errands for relatives. My Grandmother likes to think she’s the matriarch of the family, the alpha female elephant. Strong, intimidating and with unquestionable leading skills. However in this plane of existence we call ‘reality’ she is in fact more like the Tick attached to the aforementioned elephants nipple. Perhaps the best description of her is “Hyacinth Bucket with cataracts”.

I’d say the customary “but I digress” around about now, except I don’t really have anything to digress from. Life at the moment is great, I have a loving family, a great girlfriend, equally fantastic friends (never let it be said I’ll not include them now I’m ‘in a relationship, I’m not that pathetic) food in the cupboard and most importantly…24 hour internet access.

I’m only one step away from perfection in my life right now; air conditioning in every room of this damn sweat box of a house. If I didn’t know any better I’d say Satan himself was taking a summer break in the foundations of the house. Oh wait, make that a possible two steps away from perfection – it’s not natural for your buttocks to glow green under low lighting is it? Not that mine do…just a friend of a friend was asking y’see.

Mattalogue; All Change, Except For The Underwear Department

So as a handful of people have pointed out to me over the past couple of weeks, it’s been awhile since I updated this thing. And believe me, it’s not from lack of trying. There have been at least 5 attempts at applying the shocky-paddles of life to the heart of this blog. Each with varying levels of failure.

But since the last post things have changed, alot.

Firstly the major change is I’m no longer a ‘singleton’ as I have been irritatingly referred to in the recent past. Yes that’s right, I’ve found someone crazy enough to want to call me their boyfriend. But all self deprecation aside, things are going well and I feel like the luckiest man on earth.

Another thing that's changed is that I'm now typing this on a shiny working laptop. That's right...Reggie is -much like the career of Jim Davidson- dead in a tatty bag. It was a fitting end for a piece of technology who bought nothing but frustration and third degree burns. So yes you guessed it, his death involved...much frustration and third degree burns. He also took my pictures/songs with him. May he rot in Silicon Hell. The bastard.

The final piece of change in my eventful life is that I've finally left our temporary residence for a year. Floffle Quash. Rather tellingly a house named after a random assortment of letters seen on the back of a Chav-mobile wasn't the easiest to live in. Sure downstairs prison toilet (so named because it had a lock on the OUTSIDE) exploded and flooded a good portion of the house. And okay, maybe most of the rooms had a unique 'mouldy' décor to them. But it was still my home for many months and I feel rather empty knowing I can't go back without getting a court order.

It was hard leaving that place behind, so many memories formed over the course of a year. And the male bonding, oh, the male bonding. 40 minutes spent batting a balloon around one of the bedrooms in a little triangle. These truly were the hardcore-raving-Vikingesque nights I'd heard tale of before coming to University.

Another odd thing about our house was the 'spot of doom' situated just behind the T.V.. A black mark on the wall which grew as time went on. Unlike its suspiciously similar brother on one of the latest episodes of Doctor Who it hasn't nearly killed James Corden. But I'm still willing to give a try. Go on James, touch it. It'll be funny...'cause you're fat.

That's all for now I believe, I'm sure you were waiting with bated breath for quite awhile for such a riveting update on my life. Now that I've moved out I officially consider this time 'the summer holidays' what thrills and spills will I encounter during this long period of rest? Sunburn? Anger at the o.t.t. displays of jingoism while the World Cup goes along? Getting a job? Stay tuned for more exciting adventures!

Mattalogue; Delving into the Land of the Poisoned Skies

So after a real world shake up, I've decided to dedicate my free time to writing the first in my End of the Road 'series'; Land of the Poisoned Skies.

It's gonna be tough, mostly because I'm easily distracted at the moment (oh the problems of writing on an internet enabled laptop) and I'm starting to wonder if I've made the plot too dense. Especially considering it's my first venture into the world of non-short story writing. Though it could be worse, the fifth in the 'series' -Revelations- deals with the end of the world from the perspective of the two men that cause it (not to mention other side characters). One of them the Machiavellian head of state in an foreign country and the other a self destructive assassin. Which in turn is actually a flash back by the assassin as he lies recovering in a bed in Botswana and begins to realise he's not safe even in the middle of nowhere. I don't think I'll be seen for several months.

Of course, thanks to my usual brand of pessimism (which has been reinforced, hard) I don't think this is going well. After all, I started work on the first chapter -entitled The Great, Unwanted Gift for the moment- and immediately decided that such a manoeuvre was worthy of my first non-emo blog post in awhile.

Anyway, on a heavier note 2010 seems to be a cursed year for the Metal genre. If we consider the final days of 2009 as a part of this year we've had; The Rev (who unfortunately is from a band which is a fave source of hatedom of so called 'metal-heads', despite the fact that most of the metalbands they worship adore them), Peter Steele, Ronnie James Dio and now Paul Gray pass on. All of which were very talented individuals who brought alot -and in some cases everything- to their respective bands. Especially Mr Dio.

I'm sure most guitar players are shitting themselves right now.

And if you don't agree with me, you sir, are a Fallout Boy fan!