I don't know what's wrong with me but I appear to be regressing into childhood (yeah, like I'd ever progressed into adulthood). I say this because two things that I previously thought were only for children, I've suddenly gained an interest in.
The first is in comics. Now I've never hid my light under a bushel as regard anything by the great DC Thompson or IPC, I'm talking about stuff like Marvel or DC. Not that I'm particularly into superhero stuff, but I watched the film version of Alan Mooore's V for Vendetta over Christmas and really enjoyed it. I love anything that portrays Britain as a totalitarian state. Especially one that has John Hurt as its leader. So I'm thinking that I may actually buy some of Alan Moore's comics. Or graphic novels as I believe we must now call them. In fact we must because I bought Ghost World from an Edinburgh branch of Borders in the summer and when walking out I set the alarms off. The guy who served me came rushing from behind the counter and said, in a loud voice, "It must be your comic, they don't always scan properly!" Great, cheers, mate, now everyone thinks I'm a) a man with the mental capacity of an eight year-old or b) some kind of comics anorak.
I've had a soft spot for Ghost World for some time now, ever since I saw the film of it a few years ago. I never realised until recently it was based on a comic, ahem, sorry, graphic novel. In case you haven't seen it it's about two intelligent late teenage girls being bored in a small town that can't contain them and the cast of weirdos they meet. I've always found the kind of people who fancy cartoon characters slightly worrying (especially my sister who fancies a character from King of the Hill called Boomhauer. A man who speaks in an indecipherable Texan drawl). But I think I fancy the two girls from Ghost World (or do I just fancy Scarlett Johansson and Thora Birch who starred in the film?), and should I be worried that I fancy two 17 year-old American girls, as a 37 year-old man, that is? Never mind, I could always email Lily Allen's new squeeze and ask him I suppose...
The other thing I've got myself interested in is electronic gaming. Never appealed before until Guitar Hero, so this Christmas I treated myself to an Xbox 360. But it didn't stop at the latest incarnation of GH, no, I've gone and got something called Grand Theft Auto IV. I've started playing it and I haven't got a clue what's going on. I know you're supposed to nick cars. I've got that far, I know how to steal the cars, you just walk up to one and press the 'Y' button. But I don't know what happens once inside the car. I tend to just drive it around and avoid the 'cops'. Someone at work told me you have to follow a radar or summat. I dunno...
There's also a lot of effing 'n' jeffing on it too. You only have to walk past someone on the street and you get called a 'motherfucker' or somesuch. Apparently there's a strip club to visit somewhere in the game. No doubt, on my current fancying-cartoon-characters form, I'll end up crying myself to sleep over one of the sodding CGI strippers.
I'll keep you posted on how I get on with it. I'm hoping to get Call of Duty: World at War for my birthday. In which you can bayonet stormtroopers of the Third Reich and throw flames at soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army in the Pacific campaign. Top.
