kazuyoshi hoshino didn't die for this (because he's still alive)
unhinged gran turismo 3 very tired.txt
my main hobby these days is i go to a woman's house and play gran turismo 3 on her playstation. i got rid of all my video games from my house and life because i was worried i was getting something called 'neet syndrome' which sounds pretty good but is actually quite a bad thing you know. i love video games because they make you not remember your life is horrible and that you've massively not reached the potential you had as a child. and when I say 'you' in that last sentence, I mean 'me', but you probably got that already, it's a pretty common semantic device.
i love video games, but i love them too much, and, to paraphrase popular song singer Kiiara, if you love something, you have to let it go. i know that popular song because it was in a game i used to play when i was getting a university degree - a very shameful waste of time when i should have been doing something better with my life, like playing a game while i was getting a university degree that was of more use to the capitalist economic system we've all agreed to operate within.
i let go of video games for a very long time but not long enough a time to turn my life around and make something of myself, so i decided it was time to play some video games again. but having got rid of all my video games and also consoles to play them on, i had to find an alternate source of the disgustingly addictive entertainment medium. luckily i had recently befriended a woman who lived on the other side of the city and i saw this as one of these rare '2 birds with 1 stone' scenarios. i could visit my new friend's flat, not only to play some video games with her, but also to regularly get outside and mingle with The People. since she lived on the other side of the city, i'd be forced to walk over an hour to get there and on that walk i could say things like 'hello' and 'how are you' to happy passers-by. i could also get vital exercise that is very important to achieving a long life. all that plus i can play video games from my youth and talk about them with my new woman chum who is quite cool and a bit of a 'mother figure' to me now if i'm allowed to say that.
on these arduous walks from my subterranean dwelling in the arse end of quite a nice area actually, to the swanky seaside pad of my recently aquired pal, i encounter an absolute buttload of people. back in caveman times i.e. the 1950s, you could feasibly live your entire pathetic life only encountering like 15 other people. i could have been a man-baby farmhand in nebraska and eaten nought but corn and the farmer's daughter's ass and been happy. but no, i am a very modern young-ish man in a metropolis that's as cutting-edge as it is razor sharp, by which i mean the rate of knife crimes is rising exponentially, so i am doomed to a lifetime of jealousy, regret, and my parents paying for my resultant therapy.
i don't get on with people very easily and in fact i would call myself a misanthrope. it's a very cool word, especially when its antonym is just like 'nice'. give me adjectives with multiple syllables, it makes me sound more interesting than i actually am.
despite being a misanthrope, i am generally optimistic about the nature of humanity and i like talking to people when they give me free things like chips and affirmations. i get on with people one-on-one like my new playstation buddy. i just don't like the swirling mass of flesh that is the out and about people, a repugnant sea of febrile existence, coming towards me, barging into my shoulders, asking me if i'd like a Superdrug Beautycard. it's all too much. on this particular route towards video games, some of the horrors i encountered included:
17 estate agents who look like 17 estate agents
an extremely married guy and his Wife
a roving gang of Adidas men conducting a territorial boncing
the gigantic tower in the sky to which i offer prayers to avoid its vengeful wrath
the Group Dad and his harem
a child in a cowboy hat AKA the worst person ever
a salesman attempting to hock copies of 'Shingle Today'
the lanyard girls
a tall man, made of wicker, playing basketball
a dude who looked like Kramer from Seinfeld if he grew a crap moustache
several more dudes with crap moustaches
what an absolutely hell. i am hyperventilating just recapping what i saw. it was like a de Chirico painting come to life - long shadows, illogical perspective, art poseurs coming up to you and without solicitation telling you what it all means. i really don't like the outside but it's good to get out and about now and again apparently. having friends is a good way of forcing you to do that and makes it even better when you see them at the other end of the doom field, because then you can chow down on some ASDA pizza and chuck on some video games - the great british night in.
but what video games would we play i hear you ask through the peep hole? my friend owns a playstation 2 which is the best one. i originally took the reflexively contrarian opinion that thinking the playstation 2 is the best one is to be blinded by nostalgia, and that, with advancements in technology, modern gaming has far surpassed whatever previous 'golden ages' cultural tastemakers have placed on a pedestal. however i was wrong and i'm man enough to admit that.
the playstation 2 is just the best one. it has the best games, the most interesting gameplay, a timeless graphical style, a satisfying tactile interface with discs, memory cards, and the ka-klunk of shutting the lid, hearing the console reading the disc with beeps and whirs going on underneath the hood, genuine technological engineering. you can hear the japanese guy's hands solder the circuit boards, it's echoing out of the machine. so because my friend owns a ps2, we were going to play tekken and also metal gear solid 2: sons of liberty and finally gran turismo 3 the real driving simulator.
gran turismo 3 is a great game because it combines fast-paced arcade racing with genuine simulation principles regarding how a car gets around a track in the fastest possible time. you feel like a professional racing driver when you play it but also you can put the controller down and get a cup of tea. accessible but with great depth, like all the best games. i love the endurance races especially because i can forget about all my shortcomings for the longest amount of time possible. i also laugh when i put on tires called 'Super Hard'. i am a big fan of humour.
my friend isn't very good at gran turismo 3 and in fact doesn't understand it at all. she takes the controller and sends my calsonic skyline gt-r into the wall, straight up turns right at the opening left hand hairpin at deep forest raceway, like what the hell lady. but that's okay because really the video game is just a ruse, a disguise of social convention, an excuse to enter into the scenario of just a couple of good buds on a sofa bitching about all their mutual acquaintances. discussions like 'who is a massive bellend' and 'why does this person say all this reprehensible stuff' which really help a couple of mates bond and the video games facilitate this.
it's why i got into video games in the first place, because playing them and talking about my experiences of them with people helped me make a whole bunch of pals back when life was carefree and nice. but then i just started playing video games where you take sports teams to the top of the sports tree and stopped talking to people all together. my conversational nous fell fallow etc. so it's been really nice to get back into video games in a healthy way with my friend.
it was a good decision to locate all of my access to video games in the possession of a friend behind the lock and key of their property's front door, because it means, if i want to waste all my life sitting in front of a video game, i can't because my friend will kick me out eventually and into the cold evening breeze. i have to earn my access to video games by walking a whole hour towards them and then being really nice to a human for like a whole evening, so i know that, even if i am just going round and round grand valley speedway tonight, i'm at least a certified 'Good Person' and deserve to feel... not happy, that's overstepping the mark, but somewhere near that ballpark.
i am very excited to hear from my friend again and be summoned over to play more gran turismo 3 the real driving simulator. i am looking forward to unlocking all the cars, though it is a shame there are no ferraris or porsches due to capitalism. more than that though, i can't wait to chat with my friend who is a woman again about their life and any special interests they may have. i have felt very lonely for a long time but now i feel quite lucky to have met an interesting person who doesn't just want to kick me in the shins like the feral youths down the park.
yours in failing your license tests,
utica bunsen (raconteur)