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Outside? Overrated. There's an expression I use, approximately three weeks into summer, after I've gorged myself on the arrival of the tanned short skirted girls from warmer climes; once the novelty of not having to wear a jumper or a vest has worn off. The expression is, "it's too fucking hot". The expression spreads (I claim no credit for it) and within half an hour the whole office is staggering around with heat stroke moaning that it is indeed, "too fucking hot". The smelly continental looking people, who frankly should be able to cope, arrive on the tube to thrust a stinking armpit into your face. Sweaty fat bloke has wedged himself in the seat next to you on the train home. The windows won't open. The heating is on. And somebody, somewhere is carefully admiring the combination of grey toweling sock and sandal in the bedroom mirror.
Summer isn't supposed to be like this. I dream of Ratty and Mole messing about on the river. I dream of the crack of leather against willow - the cricket version - not fantasy midget porn. A gentle breeze is blowing and it's a comfortable twenty-two degrees. I'm sipping Pimms and opening my picnic basket. What have we got in here then? Coldtonguecoldhamcoldbeefpickledgherkininsaladfrenchrollscressandwidgespotted Weather that requires you to gingerly peel each arse cheek off your PVC chair at regular intervals is no weather to be playing games. Or no weather to be playing games properly. This is the weather to close the curtains and block out that dreadfully annoying ball of fire in the sky thing. Get yourself in front of that TV, make yourself a comedy thong with your underpants and go and do stupid, bored, lazy things with games instead. Have a flap around in Pilotwings 64 for a bit. Flap. Flap flap. Flap. See? You're feeling cooler already. Why not humiliate the CPU on your favourite sports game? Rack up 800 for one in Brian Lara’s Cricket and skittle out the Aussies for 17. I can feel that gentle breeze blowing. In fact, why waste any energy playing the game at all? Three of us used to crowd around Graham Gooch's Cricket on the C64 and watch the computer play-out a test-match. We'd clap fours, and woo for sixes and stuff. One guy would even be calculating statistics on the fly via pencil and paper. His mum used to think we were insane sitting in front of a b&w portable telly as the sun blazed through his bedroom net curtains. Sail around a bit in Windwaker. Enjoy getting lost for once. Take in the sunset. Don't get annoyed about it, it's a shit game. Pretend you're in Duran Duran instead.
Thinking about it, outside has got shit graphics what with that awful pollution caused pop up effect, games are officially way better these days. So why not just enjoy the views instead? I used to get a yacht and float around the bay in Vice City, watching the sunset - usually with a (real) Bloody Mary. I find myself quite often halfway up a mountain or other high place in WoW, just sitting with a campfire, gazing, gazing... And whilst you're enjoying them there hills.... In San Andreas, sometimes I'll take a prostitute up there to show her the view before I run her off the edge of a cliff in a burning car, otherwise I just idly launch rockets into the distance or chuck grenades onto the streets below. I often took the car to the beach in Vice City and listened to some 80s tunes while watching the sun go down. There should be an award for pointless tenacity. A telegram from the Queen - that would be nice. I’ve stood and thrown a spanner at spaceships in ratchet and clank (1 or 2) for hours and hours and hours to get more bolts. I used to play Elite and fly from the jump point to the local station in real-time rather than using the torus jump drive. Spending hours just totally defoliating landscapes in Virus, trying to perfect one-shot below-treetop-altitude fly-byes.
Spent two and a half hours in Tiger Woods 2005's character tweaky thing making myself an alter ego of Samuel L Jackson's kilt-wearing character out of 51st state, just because I unlocked the kilt after beating some Scotsman in a tourney. At one stage, I was alt-tabbing to google images so I could get the eye-spacing just right. I also used to watch Lara Croft do handstands. A lot. Even better, pointless tenacity that requires no effort at all: Left Super Smash Brothers Melee running for hours on its own so I could unlock one of the characters. Little Computer People on the C64: watching him slowly starve to death. The laziest thing I've ever done in a videogame... It has to be in an old SNES RPG called Wanderers of Y's (I think). There was one section in a cave where you could stand in one spot and fire your weapon at monsters. Slowly, but surely the points added up and you leveled up (the monsters re-spawned very quickly). I took a small rock and a rubber band, placed the rock on the fire button and made sure it stayed there with the rubber band. I then went to work and came back hours later and the little adventurer dude was still shooting monsters. You know when people say, sometime around May, when a warm spell has been swept away by a cold snap, “well, that’s summer over and done with.” If we could all just take them aside and gently remind them in a short while, and it happens every year, old people will literally be melting in the streets. So remember kids, don’t go outside this summer. You’ll only get cancer and anyway, by now the fat pasty birds have summed up the courage to wear the short skirts and bikini tops. My advice? Stay in. Turn on. Flop out. July 2005
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