Darkness. That’s what we all see at the time, a sort of blissful blackness, nothing interrupting, a place where dreams are where our minds sore giving ideas or happening far beyond what we can see in the real world. But this morning, the darkness lasted longer than normal. Time to others pass normally, rushing around trying to fill their many bags with useless tat. But this mortal was beyond all that. At least until the eyes slowly open, close, open and all that I could muster was a low moan. Trying to talk was out of the question. Gotta try later.

Slowly I eased myself up, at last being able to look over the fallout zone from the week now behind me. A stew of clothes all over the place, the fan laid there on the floor, the fallen solider in the on-going struggle to reach the bed before passing out.

“What’s that smell?” I began thinking. Then all too quickly I realised it was me. And the taste, oh god, the morning breath could melt through 10ft of concrete. Having been thrown forth into the horrible reality that that I was like an extra from Resident Evil, proceeded to roll towards the end of the bed, thinking that if I could make it to the bathroom, I could do something about all this. It was too soon to make the legs hold me up. Gravity won again, and off I went.

After several more minutes of lying on the floor staring at the t-shirt which asks if you’ve tried cheese yet, I somehow summoned all the energy and will through all his body. “This is it. Damn it man, just…” the left leg pulled into my body, angling myself to stand. “A little more…” the other leg moved into position, all systems go. “And…Lift!” my mind cried out.

Slowly but surely lift off was achieved, and if NASA were watching from Mission control, my god, they would be throwing their papers in the air, and shaking each other’s hand. Success!

Navigating round the mighty obstacle of the door, I lumbered my way to the bathroom; head held low, feet slumping along the floor, the overall appearance resembles the early stages of man. Except for wearing boxers and a shirt stating what cheese is made from. One step, one step, all getting closer to the goal, washing my mouth out and washing the face until the stench was quelled enough not to kill plants close by.

Through the doorway to the bathroom, the prize of the basin stood in all its glory. “Just a bit further…” Now having got there with all the pace of a corpse, I proceeded to let the water flow, damn that water’s loud. I smothered my face with all the water I could get in these rugged yet manly hands several times, the water washing over his social fuelled sleepiness. And then using the side of the basin, the body was raised to the point where I caught myself in the mirror.

The eyes were weathered, the lines underneath made it all clear they has seen better days, the hair was a messy mixture of blonde and brown, far too long now, but hey what the hell? It wasn’t working its magic right now. But I just stared at the mirror image of the Lord of Leisure, water dripping into the sink. It had been a long time since I had seen myself in the mirror and somehow it just brought it all home.

Three nights of the Christmas nights out this week took their toll being perfectly honest and when Friday came around, I spent the day being lazy, except for playing Guitar Hero 3 more just to try to be more reasonable a player even just on easy. I have a showdown on Tuesday with more good friends on Shrewsbury, so at least the least I could do, would not be completely humiliated. If there is such a thing as being humiliated at being rubbish at pushing buttons on a plastic thing while watching different coloured circles fall down on the screen.

But this was also the first time that I was able to play against someone online in Co-op and battle modes on the multiplayer which is rather odd, someone was actually there during the day waiting for someone to browse for a match to play. From what I had seen previously, you can leave the game at this state for at least an hour without anyone taking up the charge.

So I took this opportunity to see what skill levels people have got to playing the PC version and my first match yielded this result:

As you can see from the above, I made a few mistakes which kept the score low, I have only just recently mustered the “skill” of getting up to 50 notes in a row on easy on selected songs. It was also the first time I had played Welcome to the Jungle so I was expecting to be rubbish. But 100% of notes hit and a score at least 3 times as much as mine?

That takes doing, and frankly I’m afraid. If I get to be that way, well first it would be a miracle, but secondly, I would have to have no life. No job, nothing else to do ever before I would want to reach that level. This makes you understand why South Park produced an episode about Guitar Hero. Just wait until Rock Band reaches our shores with the drums and a microphone. My god.

But that worrying development aside, I can only apologise for the lack of updates as promised on Friday, the organisation skills are not really developed further than the attention span of a three year old, and until the New Year, I guess this will continue due to ongoing silliness.

Saturday is here, of course and thankfully the night of freedom meant I have the time to catch up with the duties of writing on this international soapbox of mine. That and frankly I‘ve had to tidy up. Disturbing news I grant you, but the sad fact was the place was a mess again, one of the problems with living alone is you always get used to the mess and never bother doing anything about it unless people come around. The entire family is coming to stay for Christmas, and room has to be made for the extra bodies despite the fact that I won’t be here.

It was good today that a good mate, Keith came around to see us, how things are and what’s been going on around the place of Oswestry. What’s more it is now a mere 14 weeks till his single reason for living; a luxury cruise. It sounds ever so grand, and similar to something that Steve and Kristi will be doing next year as part of their honeymoon. So that’s the fashion news for you all, Cruises are in!

The best part of the weekend so far is that it is only half way through. I have two more fruitful or fruitless days ahead of me depending how things pan out. Either all the work that needs to be completed before Christmas will be done, or I will have caught up with all the sleep, and will have gained an extra 13 stone due to those lovely mince pies.

It would be nice to feel a winner either way.