This Friday just gone the forces of the great crass-consumerism monoculture struck yet another blow against common sense and caused chaos on the streets of Great Britain. I am, dear hypothetical audience, of course talking about the inexplicable export and subsequent rise in popularity of that peculiar American tradition of The-Friday-After-Thanksgiving-Sales-Chaos, or, as it’s known to its friends, Black Friday. And when I say chaos, I really do mean it, in stores up and down the country masses of people who’d for some reason bought into the whole crazy mess descended in their droves. Incidents involved police being called to various branches of Tescos, shoppers fighting over allegedly cheap televisions, people causing affray and so on. All in the name of great deals. By which I mean consuming.
Tag / random outbursts
On The SciFi Ghetto
So there I was, dear hypothetical reader, browsing the wares in a local branch of Popular Music Chain, and I ventured into the basement to look at the DVDs. No, not those kinds of DVDs, mind out of the gutter, please. Anyway, it seems a recent change to the layout of the store has seen a new section added off to one side, hidden at the side of the counter behind the blu-rays. This section is exclusively for Science Fiction films, ostensibly at least. This sort of thing is incredibly common, walk into any branch of Popular Bookshop Chain (and indeed many independents) and you’ll see something similar, Science Fiction and it’s stable mate Fantasy are often deliberately separated from everyday Fiction based on entirely arbitrary distinctions. There has always been this bizarre attitude that scifi, and often only specific kinds at that, is somehow “less worthy” of being considered alongside other works of fiction, that it is somehow a lesser work of creative endeavour. This, folks, is the Science Fiction Ghetto.
On Introductions
Hello, I am Ndro, or Dom, whichever seems most apt, and this is my blog.
Ok, probably should write more before the tumbleweeds set in. I always suck at introductions, if there’s one thing I detest the most it’s writing about myself. Anyway, yes, as mentioned I am the eponymous Ndro (an assumed pseudonym of one Dom Barlow, on the occasions he’s willing to admit as such), an individual originally from London but currently trying to make a go of it in the North East of England. I’m quite a creative individual, a Graphic Designer by trade, prone to random outbursts of creativity in written form, I’m also a massive geek, with video games and films being a particular weakness of mine, along with the furry fandom (which is a wonderful stress reliever if you can avoid the obligatory drama) and would you believe this is something like my fourth or fifth attempt at blogging in my 23 years of existence thus far.
Yes, 4 or 5. Most previous attempts died because of lack of interest, usually due to either other obligations (A-levels, University, real life &c.) or the angry teen I was at the time got distracted by the next shiny thing like some kind of irate magpie. Either way I imagine I’ve left a string of half-finished rantings across the internet that total won’t be dug up and used against me at some indeterminate point in the future. At All.
But, this time I hope will be different. In the intervening years I’ve discovered Twitter and the joys of broadcasting my opinions on things (of which there are many, trust me) to an unsuspecting universe, but 140 characters is often not enough to express a complex opinion, at least not in any coherent way. I also have begun uploading the fiction I write for my own entertainment to the internet for yours, and since the existing art sites (see the DeviantArt and Weasyl links up top there) I use are of varied use for writers, I figured a service that’s based of the written word would be ideal. Either way, I have the kind of motivation now to keep at it.
Now let’s just see how long it’ll stick.
Until next time, folks
–Ndro
–Hello!
Ndro's Adventures in Reality 