Momentous decisions

I've made a momentous decision.  One that cuts ties with the dreams and aspirations of the past and opens the way forward to a future unburdened by the clutter of a life no longer mine.

I'm going to sell my unicycles.

I realised today that it has been at least five years - probably closer to six - since I last attempted to ride them.  When I bought them I was in my late 20s, obsessed with circuses and keen to turn my life around.  No more would I be an overweight, bookish couch potato.  I would be someone who was active and adventurous and rode unicycles.

Well, I did turn my life around.  I am active and adventurous.  And being the person who owned unicycles helped me on this journey.  I am where I am now because I once thought trying to ride a unicycle seemed like a good idea.

However, I never quite nailed it.  I got to the point where I could occasionally (but not often) mount without holding onto something, and I could amble around a car park or the paths at my local park for some distance.  And I progressed to the point where I came off the unicycle on purpose 9 times out of 10 and rarely hurt myself any more...

But I didn't stick with it long enough to become a fluent rider.  And, if I didn't do that in my late 20s, what are the odds I'm going to suddenly get back into it in my mid-30s?

Looking back, it was just too much hard work.  And I have so many other toys and obsessions that have whisked my attention away since then.  While I still appreciate all things circus, I'm less obsessed now - and less likely to try running away to join a troupe.

So now my unicycles are really souvenirs of a life I wanted to live, once.  And as souvenirs go, they take up a bit of space.

Time to lose the clutter, and let them go fill someone else's dreams for a while.  I still have a penny-farthing, and that will do me for now.

Not really all that useful

When I'm particularly stressed out, or starting to feel in a blue funk (two things that often go together), I often find my thoughts turn to redecorating and/or exercise programmes.

I have to say that I also think of these things when I'm not feeling particularly stressed, but when I'm stressed out they seem to loom larger in my mind.

It's like I have 101 things to do and I don't know where to start - so thinking about moving the cupboard to the opposite side of the bedroom seems an appropriate response.

Or I have a bunch of assignments and some stuff for work coming up, so I suddenly want to take up body building.

(Well, no.  I don't actually want to take up body building.  I want to do one of those things actors do before filming a superhero movie where they hire a personal trainer and spend six weeks in an intensive exercise/diet programme and end up looking impossibly muscly and uber fit for the duration of the movie... and then go back to living a normal life.

It just sounds like a fun thing to do - go all out with the fitness thing for a couple of months, get plenty of photographic evidence, and then say "been there, done that - icecream!" and forget all that craziness.)

Instead I'm just cleaning stuff when I should be studying and doing push-ups whenever I can't concentrate on what I'm supposed to be reading.  And thinking about rearranging the furniture in two bedrooms.

I know why I'm doing it.  It's a way to delude myself that I have some control over what's going on in my life.  It's an instant gratification thing:  I can see my environment is more orderly, I can feel the effect of physical exercise.  I know I am having a direct influence on my world and making it "better"...

And at the same time I'm not facing the things I should be doing right now.

It's being useful, while at the same time not being useful.

Minigolf and Mazes

Coming off my last post about minigolf establishments, a minigolf center is now right up there on my "I'd like to do this when I'm rich" list with a maze complex.  In fact, it’s probably much easier than a maze complex.  I could probably put a minigolf centre on the block of land I eventually intend to turn into a maze complex and use it to earn some money to go towards constructing the mazes.

Then I will own a space that has lovely gardens, a maze complex and a minigolf centre on the outside, a room that contains a miniature village with model trains on the inside and a lovely teahouse where people can have Devonshire Teas and book the pretty spaces for weddings and such.

Or I could put the minigolf centre (with its small, neat gardens, a garden railway and a small teahouse) on a smaller block of land somewhere else in town while I’m working on the maze complex (with its formal gardens and bigger, classier teahouse) in another part of town (or in a neighbouring town) and have deals and things where people who visit one get a discount on the other.

I wouldn’t do any of this here, in this city, of course.  It’s my dream to buy a big block of land in a small town (where the land is cheaper) and use this complex to bring some tourism dollars into the place.  I keep thinking that if I’m smart enough I can make places that can fulfil a few needs at the same time, and therefore not make myself completely broke while chasing this dream.

A place for the locals to go for lunch or coffee.  A place for people to book for parties and weddings.  A place that encourages tourists to stop and spend some money/time in the region.

I love these sorts of places, and they seem so obvious and easy to execute that I don’t know why more small towns don’t have them.  I’ll probably find out the hard way.

Beverages

I've recently discovered Campari.  I tried it once back when I was 18 or 19 and didn't like it much, but now it suits my tastes quite nicely.

In particular, I quite like a Campari and orange.  It's simple, it tastes nice, it's okay as it moves closer to room temperature and it doesn't have that much alcohol in it, compared to other alcoholic beverages - making it perfect for the kind of person who likes to nurse a single drink for the evening and doesn't usually drink much alcohol.

You know how you want a "my drink"?  Something that is fairly reliable that you can order in social occasions and feel confident that you're not going to regret wasting money on something you don't actually want to finish?

Well, at the moment I think a Campari and orange might very well be "my drink".

The Minigolf Offensive

The main entry to the local showgrounds lies directly opposite a minigolf establishment.

I should really say *the* minigolf establishment as it’s the only one in town.  It may very well be the only one in the region.  To the best of my knowledge, none of the neighbouring towns have minigolf… places.

What do you call the location where one plays minigolf?  Is it a field?  A park?  A centre?  Greens?  “Minigolf greens” sounds silly, but so does “minigolf links”.  It’s certainly not a club – you don’t join it, you just turn up and play.

I’m going to go with “centre”.  It’s a nice generic word that could mean almost anything (except, perhaps, “circumference”, “fringe” or “periphery”).

Anyway, as I was saying, I believe our minigolf centre is the only minigolf centre in the region.  It has been there for at least a decade and a half – possibly two decades.  I remember going there at east once when I was in high school.  I went again about seven or eight years ago for a party.  And I visited for the third (fourth?) time in my life this year, when I went to the Show.

I have often thought of going there again over the years, but I’m one of those lazy people who never visit places in their own town.

On this occasion I walked out of the showgrounds and noticed the centre was open, and thought I may as well go in and play.  Now, I have actually been to a couple of other minigolf centres while on holidays, so this wasn’t the third (fourth?) time I’ve ever played the game, just the third (fourth?) time I’ve been to this particular establishment. 

The last two (three?) times I didn’t really pay any attention to the grounds or the design of the place.  This time I couldn’t help it.  

The current owners had taken one of the two courses out of action and replaced it with a rather sad combination of messy-construction site and unused jumping castle.  The remaining course was in a severe state of disrepair.

The fake turf on the greens was ripped and fraying.  Many of the original obstacles had been removed and either replaced with common garden ornaments (as in, terracotta pots and those little stone temple thingies), or simply hadn’t been replaced at all.  Everything was so worn and dilapidated that you couldn’t help but note how simply it had all been put together in the first place – and how simply it could have been repaired.

Sure, there was a few thousand dollars worth of hardware involved in fixing the place up – but this is a business, for goodness’ sake.  If you can’t invest a few thousand dollars in maintaining the grounds that your livelihood depends on, then what is the point of you?  Why are you doing this if you are going to do it so badly?

But I noticed something while I was going around the course.  I noticed how simply it had all been done in the first place.

This was a space no bigger than some of the back yards in the old suburbs.  Parts of the grounds were just lawn and gardens:  some nice spots to sit with a drink or a picnic and a pergola with a barbeque for parties.

The actual “links” (or whatever you call them) were just a bit of clever landscaping, really.  A strip of concrete with a hole at one end (a bit of plumbing pipe), covered in fake turf and made “interesting” with the inclusion of obstacles.  Some plants or mini-rock gardens separated the links from each other to create a sense that each was is own little space, and the use of a bit of raised dirt and steps gave it some different levels and made it a bit more varied.

And the original obstacles weren’t even that clever.  They were much more clever than their common-garden replacements, but they were basically blocks of painted wood with holes cut in strategic places, or sculptures with a bit of tubing running through them.  It was the paint (now quite worn and faded) that made them look interesting in the first place.

Looking at this sad, dilapidated excuse for an activity centre, I suddenly realised just how easy it would be to make your own.

Seriously.  I want to make one now.  

Almost a musical

I’m on a bit of a Disney kick at the moment, so you’ll either have to ride it out with me or come back later when I’ll be obsessing over something else.

I’ve been trying to work out exactly what it was about Frozen that left me feeling a little flat.  I mean, apart from the panic about an “eternal winter” that didn’t even last a whole afternoon before people were forming possies.

I think it was because it disappointed me as a musical.  It started of with so much promise:  An ensemble piece, the solos, the duet… It looked like it was shaping up to be a worthy companion to Beauty and the Beast.

But then it dropped the ball, musically speaking.  I couldn’t help but feel it was missing a few key numbers.  Where was Elsa’s song about wishing she could love and be loved?  Where was Kristoff’s song about “man this girl is annoying, but she kind of grows on you”?  Where was a nice big number (either a solo, duet on ensemble) about how real love can make a real difference (if not earlier in the piece, it totally should have been in that part where Anna works out what an act of love is all about and Elsa realises how to thaw the kingdom).

Yeah, the “fixer-upper” song was kind of that… only it really, really wasn’t.

What was with that waste of an ensemble?  We had the ice song at the beginning (good start), then the trolls’ number just past the half-way mark, but what about a nice, juicy “hey, it’s beginning to snow!” from the townsfolk at the start of the *cough* eternal winter and a nice big riff on the “do you want to build a snowman” theme at the end?

Can you imagine what the film would have been like if it had ended with the entire cast and ensemble singing “come out and play?”

Have you ever seen the stage version of Beauty and the Beast?  Unlike other adaptations of movies to stage musicals, nothing much needed to be altered to take that film from the screen to the stage.  The original animated film was just a well crafted musical and, because of that, it translated really well from one medium to another.

You wouldn’t be able to do that with Frozen – or with Tangled for that matter.  As much as I loved Tangled, it was also pretty undernourished as a musical.

Quite frankly, I think Pocahontas was a better musical than any of the more recent Disney films.  That’s not meant to imply that I think poorly about Pocahontas and am comparing the more recent stuff with something unfavourable.  I loved Pocahontas so much I actually bought the sound track, and still occasionally burst out with “I look once more – just around the river bend – beyond the shore…”

But that movie is almost 20 years old.  Name one Disney animation from the past two decades that could hold a candle, musically speaking to Pocahontas, let along be in the same league as Beauty and the Beast or The Lion King?

I think Frozen could have done it.  It showed promise.  And then it didn’t live up to that promise, which is such a bummer.

I know it sounds like I hated that film, but I was really just disappointed by it.  It had moments of being almost great, but it was never actually as great as it could have been.

Tennis + Soccer = Tenner?

One of my biggest problems is the fact that I keep coming up with stupid ideas for games that would probably be totally awesome... but I don't know anyone who would be dumb enough to play with me.

I was watching hurling the other day (a truly wonderful game - I tell you, those Irish kids really know how to play) when I had another one of my "how would you play that if you didn't have any of the right stuff?" moments.

This is the same urge that makes me want to create a cut-down version of Gaelic Football to run on a normal soccer pitch.  And it is fraught with the same problems.  Sure, I could easily come up with rules and things, but then I'd need to convince people to play it - and, quite frankly, I just don't know any people.

Well, I know a couple of people, but they're really boring and don't go in for crazy sport crap.

Anyway, one thought lead to another and eventually this came to me:

"Do you know what would be awesome?  Soccer, but played with a tennis ball and tennis racquets."

Hurling is, you see, essentially Gaelic football played with what looks like a softball and some deformed hockey sticks.  Apart from the ball itself and what you physically do with it, the games are basically the same.  You play on the same space, following the same rules regarding things like free shots and all that, and you score the same way for the same number of points.

So, if you carried this principle over to soccer, essentially everything would be the same, except you'd have a tennis ball and people would be whacking it across the pitch instead of kicking it.

Following hurling's lead, you would be able to catch the ball in your hand, and but you have to hit it to another player (either with your racquet or with an open palm or a closed fist).  You wouldn't be able to take more than three steps with the ball in your hand, but you could run as far as you like while balancing or bouncing it on your racquet.

Other players wouldn't be able to hit your body with their racquets, but trying to knock the ball off your racquet would be fair game.

Quite frankly, I think this game would be a bucket of fun to watch and play.

You'd need a soccer pitch (every town has one), tennis racquets (easy enough to get), tennis balls (preferably some colour other than green - but still perfectly obtainable) and possibly helmets of some description (unlike hockey, the racquets will be flailing about at head height, so the odds of getting hit in the head would be high).

All of these things are doable.  This game could be played tomorrow.

I offer it to whoever is willing to make it work.  Especially if you send me a link to the Youtube footage.  Go forth and play - and try to come up with a better name than "tenner".