Random: Too. Much. Information. (And a ramble about a favourite game.)

I need a grinding wheel for my brain because right now, I feel as bright as the dullest knife in a drawer. I have been making mistakes since roughly 5a.m. I usually become wide awake after some thirty minutes, but I’m still groggy. I’m wondering if it’s because I’m shell-shocked. After what a work colleague said last weekend, I meant.

Backstory

I had been working over last weekend with a colleague, whom I know long enough to regard as a casual friend, at the office in her seriously gorgeous five-storey home. After working non-stop for hours, we decided to have an hour’s break. She treated me to a quick meal in the kitchen and while we dined, I noticed a DVD next to a TV with DVD drive and realised I’d seen another copy upstairs in her office. Both were copies of Twilight.

I asked whether she was involved because some usually receive complimentary copies or screeners as part of their work. She explained she wasn’t, but loved the film enough to buy three copies. One for her office, one for the kitchen, and one for the ‘living’ room, which is a basement (with awesome French doors out to the garden) that has been converted into a ‘mini cinema’.

(Houses like hers are the kind that makes me wish – repeatedly, I admit – I was born into a so-wealthy-that-it-hurts family. Or landed a lottery winning ticket. I never bought a lottery ticket, though, because I truly believe that my chances of winning a lottery are fewer than my chances of being in a plane nose-diving for the sea, so why bother?)

We discussed the novel and the film. I admitted to not liking either. She said it wasn’t the prose that attracted her. It was the concept. I pointed out vampire romances – YA included – have been around for a long time. I named examples including The Vampire Diaries, Blood and Chocolate (werewolf), and so on. This sparked a really interesting discussion, particularly about why it was so popular. I theorised and she did the same. Our theories were tied to pretty much two things: the forbidden apple and sexuality.

By then she’d been drinking quite a bit. She offered me some but I refused because we were working, I wanted to go home sober, and I don’t usually drink, anyway. Obviously the booze loosened her up a bit, enough to cross the professional line by sharing personal information and such.

I’m used to this as it’s common in our profession, especially when you’re stuck in a hotel – miles and miles from home – with public entertainment nowhere to be found. In this scenario, you sit in a bar or restaurant and talk with colleagues ’til late at night. We nickname those nights “Hotel Campfire Nights”. Swap work-related war stories. Tell horror stories. Gossip. Bitch about this or that; usually about union rates and industry politics. Play some games once in a while. Ranging from board games to some silly fun invented games (my favourite was ‘Guess Which Film! the Haiku Edition’*). And sometimes, it means a night of soul-baring discussions and confessions.

That sometimes made me uncomfortable, though, because of those who drunkenly revealed their truly horrific childhood experiences. Drunkenly is the operative word here. Some were so mortified next day that they either pretended they didn’t remember anything about the night before or simply left the production. Anyroad, it can become a habit for some to share (or overshare) when chatting with people in the same profession.

When this work colleague opened up, I instantly became wary because she’d been drinking. So I braced myself for it. Was it anything I expected?

O.M.G. You Did Not Say That.

During her soul-baring chat, she revealed her current favourite sexual turn-on is cover her partner’s body with glitter gel, dress him in an Edwardian outfit, dim the bedroom light, settle back and watch her partner doing a striptease.

Fine, but her partner is my former boss.

This unintentional image of the former boss covered in glitter popped up in my mind, which instantly zapped my brain hard enough for me to say rather weakly, “Oh, my. Cleaning bills must be quite high? I mean, glitter gel leaves a mess on clothes, doesn’t it?”  What else was I supposed to say? It’s like finding out  my gran was secretly a professional dominatrix (I still don’t want to know if she was).

I met with her Monday morning and she seemed fine. I debated whether I should ask her not to reveal that kind of information again, but then I realised she wasn’t in the wrong. Not entirely. We had been eating and (on her part) drinking during an hour’s break. Plus, she does regard me as a casual friend like I do her. I don’t work for her partner any more, either. I’m reasonably convinced she wouldn’t reveal it if I was. Or more likely, she forgot I once worked for her partner. That makes sense, actually. This realisation makes me feel a little better.

Either way, I’m doing my best to bleach that imagined image off my eyeballs.

*Guess Which Film! The Haiku Edition

Players have to guess a film title based on a summary or an iconic scene alone, which has to be in form of a haiku. A name (character or actor) or any part (word or number) of a film title isn’t allowed to be used in a haiku. Let me think of some as examples:

Sinful people die.
Cops’ torches shine through the dark.
Wife has a headache.

—

Love reign o’er me,
kite-high on blues and the Who,
’til the cliffs are seen.

—

For one long hour,
he eats, eats, eats, eats until
the fifteenth egg.

Eep. Quite crap, but that’s generally what Guess Which Film! is like. Some were surprising gems, some terrible, and some dull, but none of that mattered. The point is, it can be a great time killer and it was. Time do fly with this game. Sometimes, we make it more fun and challenging by imposing a time limit. Such as, you have only one minute to compose a haiku. Sometimes, we’d rattle the composer’s cage by shouting out a countdown while the challenger would struggle to compose one in the head (no paper and pen allowed).

I think my all-time favourite, composed by a quiet but witty Brazilian cameraman at a time when we were stuck in an Austrian hotel in the middle of practically nowhere, is this one here:

He mumbles and broods.
He jogs and boxes every day.
He cries out: “Adriaaaaaan!”

He won, initially. We all recognised it, but we didn’t manage to name the film because we were on the floor laughing our heads off. Booze might have something to do with it, but it was one of those rare times when my face muscles ached from laughing so much. However, someone disputed his challenge over ‘boxes’ so it was settled as a draw. Sure, our reaction was mostly to do with booze, but his vocal performance of that last line made it an instant classic.

And the worst?

Blond has ice-blue eyes
and f–king massive tits
on a motorbike.

That was composed by an English bloke. Surprise(!) Almost all my challenges in this game failed because I usually miscounted. Players usually quickly figure out my counting ability isn’t that fantastic, so they would rattle my cage by shouting out a countdown or chanting a reminder: “Five, seven, five! Five, seven, five!” Or chortling obnoxiously when I count on my fingers (it was and still is my usual method of counting).

Of course, thanks to them, I screwed up every time.

There was a rare instance I had the counting right after an one-minute composition. Almost all players cheered and pretended they didn’t recognise the film, allowing me to win. Unfortunately, a rules-are-rules player disputed my challenge by pointing out I used characters’ names. My challenge:

Vincent and Mia do
a cool twist on the dance floor.
She’s not a blonde.

It could have been my first (and probably only) win. *sad panda eyes* Not long ago, I wondered if it’d be possible to do this kind of game on romance novels, but I realised it’d be impossible, considering the sheer number of romance novels from last few decades. I don’t know why it’s easier to do films but not romance novels. I mean, romance novels do have a gallery of iconic scenes but how does it work without mentioning author’s name?

So I’m thinking it may work if it’s restricted to an author’s body of works only. Linda Howard, for instance. I’m trying to think of one now.

On a balcony
she sees how good he is at
being a boy scout.

Heh. Can you guess which this LH book is?