Bustin' Makes Me Feel Good

 

This week it was my birthday. I'm very old. At least, I feel it sometimes. And usually, when a birthday comes along, I'm kinda happy for the day to go by with as little fuss as possible. 

However, this year my lovely wife insisted that (a) I took the day off from work, and (b) did 'something'. So, after four-plus years of not venturing to the cinema we finally made the effort and braved the public to take in the new Ghostbusters movie - Frozen Empire. 

Okay, disclaimer time – I love Ghostbusters. I always have. I was obsessed with the first movie, saw it when it first came out (in the UK) forty years ago, bought the film on rental VHS from my local video store when it first came out (costing me a pretty penny, saved up over many weeks), and leapt at the opportunity to play the tabletop RPG from WEG. I've written about my love of Ghostbusters many times on this blog, and how it was the game that inspired me to get into game writing. So, you know it has a lot of meaning for me. 

Ghostbusters: Afterlife was a revelation. An incredibly emotional lega-sequel, and I loved it. Always felt it kinda just ended, and needed more and thankfully Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire did just that. 

No major spoilers, but I must say I may not be the best person to review this. The opening titles came up and I was already getting overly emotional. I love the characters. Mckenna Grace is flippin' brilliant as Phoebe, and the writers made the very smart decision to make her the focus of the story. I was particularly interested in the subplot about what happens to all of the ghosts?

It was the only thing that has really bugged me about the series as a whole – what does happen to them all, do they all just get stuffed in the containment grid and it fills up? It's something I tried to cover in Spirits in Manhattan, where the ghosts are captured, contained, and the characters try to either resolve the ghosts' issue that's tying them to this world, or exorcise them completely. It was great to see that issue covered in this movie, though I'd like to see them try to 'resolve' more ghost issues in the future, rather than just shoving them in a bigger box and hoping they don't get out.

Anyway, I digress. Plenty of nods to the older movies, and even the cartoon series I was suitably obsessed with - probably not something an 18-year old should be obsessed with. Cool new villain, some great new characters (Nadeem was great, but then Kumail Nanjiani usually is) and some upgrades to the tech. 

I have to confess, once again, I loved every second of this. While it didn't have the emotional punch in the gut that Ghostbusters: Afterlife had – and let's face it, it could be tricky to do that every movie – it was everything I really wanted from a Ghostbusters movie. I feel like there may be too many characters now, and it'd be great to focus even more on the new Spenglers in future movies, and I really hope there's more. 

Nothing Can Stop Me Now...

I had the notification come through from my domain host that the domain for this website had auto-renewed and I've paid for it for the next couple of years. Just as I was about to delete the whole thing and go into hiding. 

So I'd better use it! 

I had a moment of clarity a few days ago, wondering why I was in such a funk. I suddenly realised that it's the typical frustrations of a creative mind. 

When I was working in retail, as I had for twenty years, a lot of it was okay, and there were some moments where it was absolutely horrific. But while I was there, I had the release in the evenings and on days off, of writing roleplaying games, making stupid videos, writing fiction, and so on, to keep me sane. 

I dreamed of an escape, to get out of retail, to do what I wanted, and to create stuff...

"It didn't turn out the way you wanted it to, it didn't out the way you wanted it, did it?" - NIN

Now I'm out of retail, and I'm doing creative stuff during the day - albeit not necessarily the creative stuff that still bubbles away at the back of my head. However, when the working day finishes I don't have that creative release of doing something personal. I could - as long as it's not RPG related - but that restriction sometimes just makes me want to sit and stare into space or hide. 

I could do something outside of RPGs, but the idea of spending another couple of hours in front of the computer in the evening is off-putting, and my drawing skills have severely diminished since the ol' comic drawing days (not that they were very good then either). I'm sure many artists have the same problem where you look at the page, picture what you want to produce, and when you actually put pencil to paper it is just a mess or nothing like what you had in mind. I get frustrated and give up, returning to the 'stare into space/TV' mentality which I know isn't good for me.

What's the solution? I seriously considered going back to retail recently, until a good friend said to me "Friends don't let friends go back to retail". 

We'll see. Something may happen. I live in hope. 

- D.

What the heck am I doing here?

It's been a long time since I wrote a blog post. I think the last one was just after Christmas when I was in the middle of my obsession with Alan Wake. Since then, many things have happened, including the demise of my beloved laptop. Ah, my poor beauty. I bought that MacBook Pro with the money I inherited when my mother died and it has served me well for the last eleven-plus years. I'm hoping to get it fixed in the future - after all, it's always good to have something with a CD/DVD drive. 

Otherwise, things have not been great. I mean, around me things are okay - I'm relatively healthy (despite being unfit), and things are happy at home. But I'm just questioning everything I'm doing. What the hell I'm actually doing with my life, and whether I made the right choices over the last 20+ years. 

I'm doubting my work, whether what I'm doing is any good and whether, in the grand scheme of things, it's worth it. 

I'm doubting what I do in my spare time - I just seem to spend all my time doomscrolling or playing stupid match games on my phone and finding it incredibly hard to be enthusiastic about anything. There have been TV series that I've managed to watched (A Shop for Killers was awesome, and I really enjoyed S4 of True Detective), but I can't concentrate on reading a book (I have about five on the go and just can't find the urge to go back to them). I haven't read a comic since I read "DIE". I miss comics, even if I can't afford them. 

The internet is driving me nuts. As Scully said, it's not good for you. I made some unboxing videos which no one watched. Half of my followers on social media are bots or spam. I don't recognise a lot of people I'm friends with on Facebook, and no one really follows me on Bluesky or Threads. 

Hell, I get about 100 people look at this blog. 

I don't know if it's just my frame of mind at the moment, but my domain is due for renewal soon and I'm wondering if I should bother. I had the urge to delete all of my Youtube videos on my channel. 

But I'm not going to - yet. 

I think I just need some time away from it all.

So this is just me saying, don't panic. I'm taking a break. Time out from the world, as they say. Just going to have some me time.

Stay safe everyone.