Feeling of Something

I'm strangely angry and confrontist today. I'm not quite sure what's wrong with me, but I'm seriously ready willing and able to rip someone apart for a comment meant only in jest, or just rip someone apart for the hell of it. Maybe I just haven't sparred in a while, and it's getting to me, I don't know.

Maria's going to buy me a membership for a local gym up here, the BAC, which is a nice place. My membership will be three months long, and I'm going to tell them to put me on a regiment that will show results within that time frame if I stick to it religiously. Once the three months is up I will look at a few factors. The first thing I need to look at is if the money was worth it - did I actually go and work out when I said I would? The second thing I need to look at is if the money was worth it - if I did work out as often as I said I would, did it actually show anywhere near the results I was hoping for?

This aggressiveness that I've been feeling lately has actually been around for more than just today, and I'm not sure where it's coming from. It's gotten noticeably worse the past few days, with Maria noticing my bad mood, and me taking what she says in the worst possible light. It's not just Maria, of course, but she's the one I'm around the most, and thus the one that I hear most from. According to her, I'm "surly."

It's possible that working out at the BAC will help me get this out of my system, whatever it is. I think that part of it is a vague dissatisfaction with where I am, physically, and there's a bit of depression added in there, but I'm not sure exactly where it comes from. Could be a seasonal thing.

I shouldn't be in such a bad mood though, if I think about how life is going right now. Maria and I are rather comfortable money-wise and with each other ... I have a promising-looking phone interview with GEICO in an hour ... and I've started writing much more the story I've been working on for a while. Things are going fairly good, and the only thing that I can think of that's a negative influence in my life right now is this extremely crummy weather. I hate winter rains. Well, the weather and my physical being.

I guess we'll see what happens when I start working out regularly. Am I the only one suffering from unexplained rage or sadness? It's quite confusing.

Alright, A Warning

I used to enjoy shows that took people and put them in unlikely and frightening situations, such as the old Sci-Fi show with Shannon Dougherty, Scare Tactics. Yes, I was one of the very few people that honestly enjoyed that show, and what they were doing with it. I'm still not convinced that most of it wasn't staged, and I'll get to why.

See, one of the reasons I enjoy watching these shows is that I'd like to believe I'd react different. A giant rat-man is crawling through the walls, and it just got a hold on one of the other guys at the construction site? I'm at a fucking construction site! Cinder blocks will bash in the head of this thing, I'll bet you! An evil goo creature is chasing me through some kind of weird construction-site (yeah, they used that gig a lot) maze thing, but it doesn't seem overtly threatening? I'll grab one of these 2X4s and make sure he keeps his distance! There's something in the ground that's eating the people around me, I can't see anything nearby for me to stand on to get away from it, and there's no obvious weapons? Okay, I'd cry. Still, whatever. The people that were being scared must have fit some kind of psychological profile that said "won't fight back, even if those around him are dying." Seriously, that's what it felt like.

Then I saw this video (thank you Brett), and I couldn't help but get a bit worried at what I saw. Basically a guy plays a video game, gets hypnotized by flashing lights in the game, is brought to another location and when he wakes up he finds himself in an exact replica of the zombie-shooting game with a fake gun in hand. The zombie he has just killed in the game is laying on the floor in front of him.

Don't ever do this to me. No, seriously. If any of you are ever offered the chance to set me up for a "got you!" situation that includes zombies, as much fun as it might be (no, seriously, I ~do~ think that would be fun, afterwards) I don't want to be responsible for what happens to the actors. I watched this guy and couldn't help but think how my reactions would differ, how I would survive the situation.

Would I freak out? Sure. Would I regress to insanity and screaming and crying? I'm not so sure, and in fact really don't think I would. Man comes out of the dark hallway, looking like a zombie? I'd give him one chance to convince me that he's not a zombie by yelling at him to say something, something understandable, and if he failed I would shoot him in the head. You have to accept the reality as you perceive it in some cases, especially when it's do or die time. I know this can be a problem with people that actually suffer from visions like these, I do understand, but if you can't take your perceptions as your reality, then can you ever trust yourself to interact with the world around you at all?

Let's say the gun wasn't really firing paintball bullets, or whatever. It was actually just air, and squibs were going off in the actor's clothing. If it seemed my aim was off and I could only hit them in the chest, I would allow them to get closer, and then shoot them point blank in the head. This wouldn't be good for the actors, even if it really was just compressed air.

I'd like to think that at that point, if it didn't blow their heads up, I'd think enough to look around for the cameras. However, this situation has him in some kind of "hypnotic suggestive trance" situation, and so I have to assume that I'd think the gun jammed, or something. By now there are four or five zombies, and I've tried the nearby doors, which are locked. Avoiding the zombies is easy since they're the slow kind, but I don't want to leave any behind as I try to make my way out of the building, so I quickly strip off my coat, wrap it around my left arm, and hold the gun by the barrel in my right hand. *Slam* *Slam* *Slam* I pound the zombie-actor's faces.

I'm not insane, and I don't mistake reality for fantasy, not really. But put me in a situation like this, and lines don't blur - they simply cross.

So, if you want to scare me, fine, make it a sudden "Ha! Got you!" kind of scare. Long and drawn out in which I'm faced off against some mutant/zombie/space alien that looks realistic because TV makeup has come a long way? Really bad idea.

Just thought I'd make that public service announcement, thank you.

For those of you that aren't interested in watching the long video, let me tell you how it ends, or would if they took it that far - the guy loses. Big time. Doesn't even seem to know you have to shoot zombies in the head. Amateur.