Setting myself on fire, Xenogears, Torchwood, Time's Arrow, and so forth...

(19:11:03 CDT)

Setting myself on fire, Xenogears, Torchwood, Time's Arrow, and so forth...

I set myself on fire today. No, not quite. I set my shirt on fire, and my shorts. While wearing them. Not a big fire. I'm not sure how big a fire has to be before you can claim it. Are there flame-based superlatives? Flamiest? Flamier? "Let's camp here for the night!" said the turtle to the salamander. "Oh," replied the salamander, "What a gay old time!"

Anyhow, was cooking pigeon peas for the first time and went to add a little onion powder to the mix. While leaning forward to rearrange the spice shelf just a little, some unknown combination of events occurred which led to my shirt being on fire. Either the front came loose and swung into the eye, or some oil from lunch (I made omelettes) was still on the edge of the eye and caught fire just long enough to spread to my shirt, or...something. I did not notice at first. I did smell something burning which I thought was onion powder somewhat caught on the eye. It wasn't like a blazing inferno burning so hot that it is beyond white, or anything. It was just a good steady burn on my right side. Took out about six-inch by four-inch section of the shirt with the flame, at one point, reaching up to about my elbow. Scorched about a one-square-inch section of my shorts. I did not notice the shorts on fire, or I may have panicked as opposed to just gotten really worried. I was able to bat it down just a little without burning myself severely, and then leaned into the sink and doused the whole shebang. Had it been a bigger fire, well, I may have been screwed. The idea to maybe fill up a pan with water and drench myself did not occur to me for several minutes. About the only reasonable internal dialogue I got was: "1) Do not pull a flaming shirt over your head because it could spread to your hair and 2) If I leave the kitchen, I greatly increase the chance that something flammable will be nearby." That, and: "Hmm, for some reason, it doesn't seem to want to go out, right away..."

It took me a good hour to stop thinking I could smell burning cloth, and to stop patting my arms and shirt to see if anything was still burning. I'm actually about three-tenths to a panic attack insomuch as my brain is all state-preparedness and there is nothing to be prepared for.

Ok, things that make Doug look less like an idiot. I've started replaying Xenogears, this weekend. If you don't know it: 1998 RPG put out by Square that was, in part, a tribute to Neon Genesis Evangelion and, in part, a rehash of all those Final Fantasy style RPGs where some ancient civilization was actually a more advanced civilization and so a lot of monsters/magic are actually something to do with Tech. It made a good mix. Not so good is the fact that the ten or twelve years since I have played it have led me to forget things like how to use a non-analog controller, how not to be confused about old button schemes, and how annoying things like text-dumps that you can't skip through or speed up are. The game itself is mostly fun: the jumping portions aren't, but the screaming dude in the exploding Mech is. A bit of history, and violating the old "less like an idiot" clause, when I first played this game it was 1998, maybe early 1999. I became a wee bit obsessed over it, and would stay up until four or five every morning, and then sleep through class. I may have even, and this is a spoiler alert, screamed "I'm the SLAYER OF GODDD!" one morning, while caught up in a cut scene. Geek...

Not straying hard from the geeky nerd pole to which I am always attached (and no, that was not a reference to my penis, but thatnks for asking): I have started watching Torchwood, as well. It's an anagram for Doctor Who, and was used as some "under the table" name for said series back in early development. If you followed any of the new-Who, a special forces team was set up to secretly handle the alien threat (why not just use UNIT, I'm not sure, except Torchwood is sort of the CIA to the UNIT's military theme). In the main story line, after a first introduction of Torchwood as a blundering semi-threat in itself, Russel Davies repitched it as a vehicle for John Barrowman, who played, too-briefly, "Captain" Jack Harkness on Who. It exists in the "Who-niverse" and shares a couple of characters and some creatures with the parent show. Except that Torchwood often has various sexual pairings (hetero-, homo-, and bi-) implied if not shown in full, and is kind of a sexy "Cop" show to Doctor Who's much more "Boy's Big Adventure" feel. The general formula is: show Torchwood Three's team doing something awesome, introduce an alien threat, have any two people end up making out as long as both are hot or at least passable, show how Jack can't die, and then solve the issue. I like it. It is fun, if a bit more patternistic than Who.

On the wordy front, have been reading Time's Arrow by Marin Amis. It makes all those "What if time moves backwards?" posts by me redundant, I guess. He's pretty much figured out all the quirks right there in that novel. Dang. He's even managed to find lot of the symbolic humor in the whole thing. The fear of childbirth, which is now "child death", as a screaming child is shoved into a woman who will digest it over the next nine months. The fact that taxi-cabs are always right there, pay you right off the bat, and then take you to someplace you no longer want to be until you wait around and finally start liking the place. Relationships start out with a slap or a "I HATE YOU" and then you meet the person, end up having sex, cool off, and finally stop seeing each other in some random bar. House-maids show up and trash your place. Patients go to the doctor with a bandage on their head, which is then unwrapped and a nail is driven into the now-exposed wound. Fire builds houses. So on and so on. The only problem with the novel is that every single description of it you will find online if you go and look it up will pretty much start with the plot twist being spoiled. About two-thirds the way through, it has not come out and said definitely what the twist is supposed to be, yet; only that one is coming. Also, after reading it, you will have a few weird moments where you brush your teeth and you cannot remember if you are getting dirt off or putting it on, and you'll have a bit where you think you should put the paste back into the tube. Maybe that's just me.

Besides the fire and game and book and such above, have been boring but not exactly lazy. Have actually started playing tennis again, and on Saturday got out in the heat of the day which was kind of fun, except afterwards I felt a wee bit on the old "pukey-puke" side of things. A swim helped that out. Need to play some more disc-golf, soon, too: but want to aim for a early morning so that I'm not sweltering under the heat. Haven't really went walking, not the two or three mile walks I used to take, in a bit. Not since, I don't know, I stopped walking home from work at night. Should rectify that, I guess.

Si Vales, Valeo

file under Me in 2010

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