So It Begins

In terms of fantasy, sci-fi and comic book movies the year 2012 only begins now. Sure we've had the rather lacklustre Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, Wrath of the Titans and, dare I add, The Hunger Games to whet our appetites for what is to come, but that's all they were - starters before the main course.

The first of the really big guns has already been rolled out as we speak. Marvel's super team, The Avengers, is assembled and ready to face the threat that Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and his goons (such a cool word) pose to the world (by which they mostly mean the US).

When the world faces its greatest threat, as it does on a regular basis, Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), Director of international peace keeping agency, S.H.I.E.L.D, calls together the world's greatest and most mismatched heroes to kick it in the head: Captain America (Chris Evans), a soldier literally lost in time; 'enormous, green rage monster', The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo); 'genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist' in a suit of armour, Iron Man; hammer wielding god of thunder, Thor and agents, Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner). That, my furry friends, sets the scene for all sorts of tomfoolery and kick-assery that both those who read Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch's The Ultimates and those who didn't are sure to enjoy. Do yourself a favour and go see this one in all three of its glorious dimensions. Joss Whedon has done a great job at the helm of this ship and never steers it wrongly. The Avengers is set to be one of 2012's highlights.

From here on out it's G.I. Joe: Retaliation (29 June 2012), which has The Rock as Roadblock. That alone will result in me watching it but it also looks like it will be a good movie in terms of actual merit. As long as it's nothing like The Rise of Cobra all's well in the world. Marvel takes another jab at the Spider-man franchise with Spidy's latest outing in the form of The Amazing Spider-man (06 July 2012). Christopher Nolan's much-anticipated conclusion to his Batman trilogy, The Dark Knight Rising hits screens on 20 July 2012 and Peter Jackson takes us back to Middle-earth before Christmas in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (14 December 2012). In between those we'll be seeing titles like The Expendables 2, World War Z, Resident Evil: Retribution, James Bond doing his Bond thing in Skyfall, Prometheus, Jack the Giant Killer and M.I.B 3 to mention a few.

All I can say is save your 3D glasses from The Avengers and expect the remainder of this year to be a great one at the movies.

Occasional Letters to Death #1

'It's funny but on good days I don't think of her so much. In fact never. I never just say hi when the sun is on my tongue and my belly's all warm. On bad days I talk to Death constantly, not about suicide because honestly that's not dramatic enough. Most of us love the stage and suicide is definitely your last performance and being addicted to the stage, suicide was never an option - plus people get to look you over and stare at your fatty bits and you can't cross your legs to give that flattering thigh angle and that's depressing. So we talk. She says things no one else seems to come up with, like let's have a hotdog and then it's like nothing's impossible.' - Tori Amos, Introduction to Neil Gaiman's Death: The High Cost of Living

"Mr Gaiman portrays you as a beautiful young woman with life bursting at the seams ..."

Hi, Charlie b3an-Champ here.

I like you, I think. I'm not sure with all the reaping you do on a daily basis. I like the manner in which Neil Gaiman embodies you, at any rate. I also like the manner in which Tori Amos speaks of you. I feel slightly uncomfortable at how cool you are when it's all said and done. You're even cool in Supernatural, what with your old-money swagger, that haunting song by Jen Titus as an intro and your cool conversations with Dean about reaping God. Gosh! You're even cool in Steven Erikson's The Malazan Book of the Fallen as Hood - who waits at the end of every scheme. You're supposed to be life's greatest enemy, the Grim Reaper and all the other scary personas. Mr Gaiman portrays you as a beautiful young woman with life bursting at the seams instead. Take the Greek pantheon as an example, no one likes Hades. He (you?) doesn't even like himself. If he were not Death he'd kill himself. Anyway, I digress. What I was saying is that I like you and that I'd like to talk to you once in a while. Even though you scare me. I want to learn from you about life. Ironic, I know, but I think you know stuff. I talk to God a lot and figure I might as well learn from you as well. Are you okay with that? We'll just talk. I'll buy you hotdogs. I bet you'd like that.

Old-money swagger.

'I know Death is somewhere inside of me. She was the kind of girl all the girls wanted to be, I believe, because of her acceptance of "what is." She keeps reminding me there is change in the "what is" but change cannot be made till you accept the "what is."'

I want to learn this, accepting "what is". I'm no good at that. Last year I was seeing a creepy raven haired Eastern European therapist who was good at listening to me. You'd like her. She listened more than other therapists because she was still new. She never really helped me resolve any issues but we talked and it was cool. I told her I have issues with dealing with reality and she agreed. The point is that even though I have a hard time dealing with reality it doesn't have a hard time dealing with me. Thus I must learn how to accept "what is". Then I can start being made into a better being.

"Nor was he known as a melodramatic god - the Lord of Death was reputed to be, if anything, ironically modest."

'Over the last few hours I've allowed myself to feel defeated, and just like she said if you allow yourself to feel the way you really feel, maybe you won't be afraid of that feeling anymore.'

I'm uncomfortable with feeling defeated and I don't like indulging the feeling but sometimes the machine just breaks and I descend into the circular ruins of my blasted mindscape. A dear friend of mine, Shannon, once told me that I need to 'feel' what I feel. That made me sad because if I 'felt' all I felt I fear I should burst. I'll give it a go and we'll see :).

I'm certain you and I can have good chats. I'll hit you up hey and I wasn't joking about those hotdogs, you'll get them.

Be cool.

Letters to God #4.1.3.4

Hello there, Big G.

Pieces of Letters to God

I hope You're well and all. I started writing you a letter some time back but then my train of thought got derailed... What I wanted to say was significant in some manner so I shall keep it in the wings till it feels the need to resurface again.

Onward march to today then, I'm seeing Red. I want Red October to take flight and be all kinds of cool, You know. So, yeah, please provide me with some guidance on this long, hard and pretty satisfying (reading this again, I realised how that can apply to things other than what I mean) road. Yes, that's what I need, You to hold my hand. That is all. Also, I have a Lady Love who needs some 'cute' added to her life. Could You do that for her please. She'll be cool with added 'cute'.

First things out of the way then. Good. Now I can proceed to tell You stories. Family hey. Scumbags. What's up with that? They're all annoying furry creatures that are in my face all day long. Do You have any qualms with me punching them? Just a little. I suck at the being all familial with my family, they annoy me too much. Bless their souls. I'd rather punch them - out of love and all that jazzy stuff.

Tell me, do You support football? Since working out with the boys and having to listen to them yap about it all day long about it I find it a little intriguing... When it's not being boring. So I was just wondering if You care for that football sort of thing. If I were You I'd not be able to really bring myself to care too much, but, Sir, I am not You.

Funny thing today :D. An old, and somewhat annoying, friend visited me today and a comment he made was the height of my day. He figures that when You chucked Lucifer out of Heaven You made a mistake by not stripping him of his angelic powers. I just loved how serious he was about the matter. So, Big G, You made a boo boo there.

I'm out. g2g, as the cool kids say. I love You madly (which is to say that even when I'm mad at You I love You).

P.S. I'm listening to the radio and there's a guy preaching about how You like 'bastards, cripples and broken things'. It's really cool. I'm a bastard and a broken thing. Just saying ;).

Letters to God #4

Hello there Big G,

Pieces of Letters to God

I'm feeling as grey as the dreary sky outside. Things are just not falling into place it would seem. My efforts at pushing hard at this life business seem quite measly in the greater scheme of things. I'm feeling all sorts of sorry for myself. I'm not that great at life it would seem. If you left breathing to me I'd make a mess of it somehow I bet. Ah, well. I'll just sit here and share my feelings of inadequacy with the sky. That's what I'll do. Life's giving me lemons and I don't like them much but I can handle them in a pinch.

Anyway, all the soppy stuff aside, how are You? Are You still on top of all things wonderfully wibbly and mysterious? Do tell a boy. I like listening to the small sound of Your still, soft voice in the din of the roaring thunder.

Navigating the Two Realms

I'm scared. Very much so. It's midnight and I'm lying in bed, my mind restless as I try to unravel the digital strands of my presence on the Interwebs and order them in a more structured manner. It feels as though my online life is getting out of hand and Twitter is the final frontier facing me and then total virtual chaos. I'm on almost every other online social platform: Facebook, Google+, Blogspot, Shelfari, Linked In, You Tube, BBM, Mxit and a myriad of forums and other bobbles. My digital life is just more than I can live - it's too overwhelming!

Navigating The Circular Ruins of my mind.

People feel hassled and harried in the 'real' world as is, what with the breakneck pace of daily living to put food on the table and hang a 42-inch LCD TV on the wall. Then there's a whole other landscape (or is it more mindscape?) to navigate in form of the digital frontier - especially with the rise of social networks. Life is much easier now in terms of communication than is was some years back and it's so much more difficult at the same time. This paradox doesn't bother us much I've noticed, it's just the way it is these days and we go with the flow. We adapt and survive I guess. Also, we don't. I'm being coy with you aren't I? With all these little paradoxes. Well, it's because of how schizophrenic we've become - pieces of our beings divided between the 'real' and virtual realms. For the most part we cope with the strain quite well and then, to paraphrase William Butler Yeats, there are the times when things fall apart and our centre can no longer hold.

Then there's a whole other landscape (or is it more mindscape?) to navigate in form of the digital frontier - especially with the rise of social networks.

I'm a little OCD about things and like a certain degree of order to my online life, which is at odds with the chaotic nature of the Internet. It's difficult to keep track of the pieces of our selves that we put on social platforms. I always feel as though I've no real control of my virtual existence and that scares me at night! My dreams are riddled with post apocalypse scenes of Terminators roaming blasted landscapes and enslaving humans to do the god of technology's evil bidding. This, of course, is the rather exaggerated fear of an overactive mind and it holds very little water but it is symbolic of the relationship we have with the Internet and navigating that space.

We are connected to so many people and share with them our day to day activities and thoughts even though we don't really 'know' them all that well. Sure, you went to primary school with Thato and Shannon but when was the last time you really got to talk to them? It's nice having the option to catch up at the push of a button but we rarely actually reach out and do so. It's not because we don't want to, it's simply because we have too much choice and it's overwhelming. I've noticed that BBM already cuts into my time doing everything else. Whilst I'm reading, writing, eating, watching a movie and all manner of other life activities that menacing flashing red light appears on my Blackberry to inform me of a message awaiting my rapid response. Balancing 'real' life and digital life is a difficult act.

People keep telling me to make the jump onto the Twitter wagon as it will make it easier to connect with my friends because Facebook is dying. I can see the need to make the shift somewhat because people are always talking about my online activities like blogging on Twitter and I have to hear from other people that something I wrote is popular on Twitter. But I worry about the balancing act and how much more of my limited time I'll be spending on Twitter as opposed to being out and about staring at clouds.

I'm interested to know how you guys manage the balancing act. Is it a seamless transition navigating the two realms or, much like my experience; is it a herky jerky fumbling between the two? Please let me know.