Aqualung

Tap, tap - is this thing on?

The thing about taking a break from blogging, is that it is quite difficult to get started again. There are lots of things to talk about, but it's been a couple of weeks so I think the best thing might be a bullet point catchup:

Health

• Somewhat better today, in that I've actually managed to get a couple of hours sleep laying down without feeling like I'm drowning in my own lungs. Still getting the occasional bout of painful coughing, but they are getting further apart. 

Movies 

• Attack the Block - gruesome, morbidly funny and sharp social observation from Joe Cornish (half of Adam and Joe). 
• Winter's Bone - a seventeen year old girl with a mentally ill mother, and two young siblings in her care, is faced with eviction from her back woods Ozark home unless she can track down her delinquent, drug dealing father who has skipped bail and gone on the run. The community around her closes ranks and refuses to talk to her, but she is undaunted. Grim stuff. 
• Norwegian Wood - a flawless and vibrant portrayal of student life in the Tokyo of the 1960s, based on the Haruki Murakami novel. Vibrant cinematography and languid story telling. Superb.
• Blade Runner - a rewatch of a classic. Astonishing to think that this film is now nearly thirty years old, but is still highly influential in it's visual style. 

Books 

• The Sense of an Ending - Julian Barnes short novella examines the fallibility of memory over the course of a lifetime as past events return to haunt the protagonist. 

Games 

• GP Story - The follow up to Game Dev Story, with the same cute pixel graphics and endless opportunities to tinker with the parts of a car to build the ultimate racing machine that can win the Grand Prix. 
• Deus Ex - Involved, cyberpunk thriller rpg, that borrows very heavily from Blade Runner and William Gibson. Good stuff. 
• Zelda - Four Swords - A freebie, multi-player Zelda game for the DSi and 3DS - I think so!