uberreiniger | Blue Monday

Subject line has nothing to do with either calling in sick on a Monday or a certain song by New Order, brilliantly covered in the late 90's by flash-in-the-pan industrial goth act Orgy. No, I call it Blue Monday because the color of the outdoors today was about two shades off from that blue filter ubiquitous to horror movies these days. Naturally I loved it. I planned to go for a walk in my new neighborhood but of course it started raining and hasn't stopped since: the kind of fat, gloppy, poisonous drops that are a hallmark of autumn days in the Midwest.

The lack of a walk was disappointing but not defeating. One thing I have not been today was bored. I have done a ton of laundry, started running our boxes of dishes through the dishwasher, and finally started cleaning the kitchen shelves to place said dishes upon. It is starting to feel like we actually live here. I had wanted to get started on the painting we are required to do but I can get away with putting it off a few more days.

About three years ago I bought myself a stack of Playstation 2 games for Christmas and never played any of them. I've made it a goal to start digging through the stack. Today I started on Kuon which is an interesting little survival horror game you've probably never heard of. If you've played Fatal Frame it has a similar premise: young woman with psychic powers goes to investigate a haunted mansion where someone close to her has disappeared and must defeat ghosts in unconventional ways. I think it even uses FF's graphic engine. Difference is that it's set in feudal Japan instead of the modern era and instead of a camera you use exorcism strips, which if you're not familiar with as a Westerner, watch anime for a couple of hours and you will be.

I really like this game. It's got an intricate plot that's as good as anything in the genre, plenty of jump scares, beautifully rendered graphics, and unlike Silent Hill the controls don't actively fight you. Although since your protagonists (you switch characters during the game,) are frail teenaged girls who've never had to hurt anyone before they're still only marginally more effective in hand-to-hand combat than the shambling, mindless undead they run up against. I'm sorry I waited so long to play it but I can't wait to see where it goes.

After gaming it was time for bass practice. Finger style is getting easier finally although I'm still a long way from mastering the gallop. I want to practice the six string more but this gallop business has me obsessed.

So now I've finished job hunting for the night and I suppose finished the day as well. Thankfully it did not go the way blue filtered horror movies usually do.