Stop me if you've heard this before...

...guess what? Who's missing an update? I'm missing an update!

Double update next week. I feel very bad, but unfortunately unlike messing my time just being uninterested in trending topical events, some personal stuff exploded this week... so, yeah. Not writing about that currently. Maybe later, when it's not so fresh.

Anyway, Guns of Icarus Online's Adventure Mode Kickstarter is entering it's final stretch with less then two days to go, you should check it out. I'd really like to see it make it's second stretch goal, which is just over twenty thousand dollars away. Come on. Coooooooome oooon. Doooo iiiiiit. So, go do that, and I'll try to remember what being a good human being is like.

Yeah. Personal stuff. Hah.

Worrying about worrying

So amusingly enough, the thing that almost prevented me writing this week is the same thing that I'm going to write about, which is indeed helpful because I had nothing to talk about. If I must have my demons that trouble me, I might as well get a little bit of writing out of them. It's only fair.

The one thing that never ceases to amaze me when interacting with everyday society – aside from the fact that there's an awful lot of them that could do with a minor stabbing – is how people deal with pain. Oh look, I have a headache. I'll just pop a pill and it'll go away. I know people who are practically addicted to Lemsip to keep a menagerie of problems at bay, which quite frankly is one of the saddest things to be addicted to. Lemsip. The thing they should give to wounded soldiers to drink, because after choking down a Lemsip, having your masturbating arm exploded off doesn't seem so bad in comparison to drinking that vile brew.

You see, I don't get headaches. No, I get the first sign of a brain aneurysm, or a tumour. I don't get indigestion, I get the first stages of a heart attack. I don't get thirsty, I get a heads up that I now have diabetes. Because I am a minor hypochondriac, and so spent and inordinate amount of time panicking about things I don't have.

The face of my brain.

I mean, seriously, I'm in my mid-twenties. I don't drink. I don't smoke. I get my five a day. I don't get badly. I exercise readily. I am a very healthy individual. But it doesn't matter shit about logic, it's the fear that gets you. A deep down, wholly irrational fear, and knee-slappingly enough, it doesn't matter that I know this. Whee. When I take new medication, I have to give the little leaflet about 'if you have these side effects, get your ass in an ambulance,' to someone else to read because if I know what the bad side effects are, in about 15 minutes I'll have convinced myself I'm getting them.

This does include stuff like athletes foot cream. Dead serious.

I can take some comfort that I'm definitely on the low end of the scale of how bad this could be. When you research hypochondria, you can read some real horror stories that I'm gratefully avoiding. However, recently I've been having headaches. Again. And pretty bad ones, too. So far I've narrowed it down to:

1. Brain tumour (terrifying, but highly unlikely)
2. Brian aneurysm (same level of terrifying, also highly unlikely)
3. Early onset diabetes (middle ground fear, moreso of losing out on doughnuts, unlikely)
4. Eye strain (no fear, likely)
5. Stress (no fear, highly likely)
6. Atmospheric weather changes (no fear, highly likely)
7. Bullshit nonsense over the EU (no fear, exceptional likely)

It's one of the bottom three. I know, logically, it's one of the bottom four, and I should probably get my glasses prescription checked. Still scared shitless. In fact, it was probably eye strain, and now that I'm stressing about it, I'm getting stress headaches, so I've basically created a perpetual motion machine of headaches. The more headaches I have, the more I worry about them, meaning I get more headaches, until the eventual heat death of the universe happens.

It doesn't help that I once got cranged upside the noggin with a sledgehammer head, and since then, I've had periodic headaches. Then I read a report that people suffering head trauma are more likely to develop tumours about 18 months after the trauma OH GEEZ THANKS FOR THAT KNOWLEDGE, PRICK. FUCK YOU. Fuck you, and fuck me for reading that, and doing that to myself. Incidentally, every time you see someone get knocked out in a movie and later they wake up and they're good to go? Bullshit. You've got a concussion. Have fun spending the next couple of days vomiting.

All I'm saying, the amount of times you've been knocked out  has probably resulted in heavy brain damage.

For this, self-knowledge can be a bit of a handicap. I absolutely wish I didn't know about any of this stuff, and didn't know about the placebo effect, so a doctor, tired of my shit could go, 'Just take this fucking sugar pill, and you'll be cured,' and I'll go, 'Really?' and they'll respond, 'Totally. Now get the fuck out of my office while I deal with actual sick people.' And I'll take it, and I'll believe it, and I'd be fine. But noooo... I had to reading and researching, and now I know about the placebo effect so now I doubt everything. Great. Well done me. I've honestly considered finding out the price of a head scan and having it done, just so that I can look at the clear scan and go. 'Hah! Fuck you irrational fear! I'm fine!' But I'm pretty sure that'll cost a whole bunch and no doctor's willing to put up with authorising the use an expensive machine on the NHS to satisfy a single patient's whining.

I want to blame House for some of this. You see a person, perfectly fine, perfectly normal, and blam! They're on the eye, blood pouring from every orifice, whilst a fake American pokes, prods and sarcasms them for 38 minutes getting them steadily sicker whilst confessing every sin they've ever committed before he figures it out and fixes you. Hopefully. Of course, it's not House's fault, but I want to be able to blame someone other than me being a wuss.

Once again, I am fortunate that I have a very minor type of hypochondria. It is possible, with persistence, to logic it away. I used to be in near horror over my heart the most of the time, like being scared that it was about to stop – have fun trying to trying to go to sleep when every time you start to drift off, you notice your heartbeat slowing so your fear response give you 20cc's of your finest adrenaline. However, I took up regular exercise, through admittedly that started merely to authorize me to continue my rate of doughnut consumption. Now, every time my fear goes, 'OH SHIT, WHAT'S THAT WITH YOUR HEART?' I get to quizzically go, 'What? That was nothing. That heart is a well oiled machine, motherfucker. I know how much cardio I do. It's fine. In fact, I'm going to swim a mile under 50 minutes just to show you how fucking fit it is.' Which, in terms of verbal riposte, whilst perhaps over wordy, in this context, is quite the smackdown. Pity I haven't got a similar thing with my head to respond to the fear.

So what we should take away from this... is that I managed to write over 1000 words on the fact that I have a headache and I'm unhappy about it.

Guns guns guns.

So in a jarring switch, I'm going to talk about something morbidly depressing today, though looking back I think I'd rather discuss the merits of choking down another Skittles milkshake. Sure, it made my stomach church and suffer stabbing pains, but physical pain is always easier to deal over emotional tragedy, which I'm going to mull over today.

You see, earlier this month in Kentucky, a little boy accidentally shot his sister in the chest with his rifle, brought as a birthday gift, killing her. It is as awful and tragic as it sounds, and my thoughts are with the family.

Now what I am not going to discuss here is how all guns need to be banned, as that's a very complicated subject to get into and I'm just a idiot with a blog. Namely, two things here are of further interest; the uncle, describing that this incident as something you can't prepare for, and the type of rifle used and how it's marketed.

Now unfortunately, I'm going to have to strongly disagree with the uncle here, on the eve of such tragedy, because yes, this is something you can prepare for. (Er, to clarify, not the dealing with a loss of a child, but the prevention of such a godawful event happening.) It's basic gun safety.

The saddest thing is that I know basic gun safety, in a country where most types of gun are impossible to legally get hold off. We make it as ridiculously convoluted as possible to get hold of a gun, to the point it's illegal for our own British Olympic handgun shooting team to train in Britain. Of the gun safety I know, I can rattle off three points from the top of my head: All guns are considered loaded until physically ascertained otherwise, never point your gun at something you don't intend to destroy, and only put your finger on the trigger when you intend to fire. One quick online check confirms this save the addition to know what is behind your target as well. So know I now that as well.

Film and pop culture admittedly doesn't assist in such matters, posing with guns because it's 'cool'. Look at these chumps:

Ah, back before the sequels which never happened.

Fingers on the triggers like idiots, causally pointed muzzles anywhere. One startle and the best case scenario involves a change of underwear and shattered pavement slabs, worst case scenario a trip to the hospital with multiple calf wounds and the remains of someone's toe in a ice bag.

In a rare comparison, in one of my favourite movies of all time, Tremors, with one of my favourite characters of all time, we have Burt Gummer, in one of my favourite little scenes of all time.

Earlier, he hands a gun to another character, Melvin, because whilst he said he'd never give Melvin a gun, hey, there's some monsters. As they end up running from the monsters, Melvin hammers away at the trigger... to discover that Burt was serious about never lending him a gun, as it's not loaded. When Melvin angrily hands it back to him later, Burt flicks open the gun to check that it's loaded, and then puts it away. That's right; he knowingly and deliberately handed someone an unloaded gun, and when the gun was handed back to him because it was stated to be unloaded, he still checked to see if it was loaded. Because guns are always loaded. The end. Burt Gummer does gun safety so right.

So right he gets slash fiction, which I'm not going to read for my own sanity.

In this tragic case, we can clearly see how gun safety was not followed and / or taught. It was the child's first rifle; if it wasn't, I'd be very surprised that these basics of gun safety wasn't drilled into him. Assuming it was his first rifle, why wasn't it secured until its use, under adult supervision? The article mentions it being 'left in a corner'. Over here, part of getting a gun licence is proving you have sufficient ability to store it safety, in metal lockable gun cases / safes, whereas I'm always hearing stories of Americans leaving guns under their pillows 'just in case'. Regular pillows, not the kevlar kind.

Now let's consider the gun purchased.

I bet if you licked the gun second from the bottom, it would taste like tangerines.

Now, in all fairness, I have nothing against children owning or using guns with appropriate adult supervision and training. I'm of the opinion that there's a great divide mentally between rural and urban populations regarding guns. Whilst urbanites see guns as no more than murder machines, people who live in more rural areas understand the tool aspect of guns much more. You not only have vermin, but America has plenty untamed wilderness and wild animals that would necessitate gun ownership to protect yourself from, a scenario that is completely alien to any urbanite. I also understand that bright colours would appeal to children more, especially young girls, who can be turned off by the overt masculine design of guns. And quite frankly, it's hard to be disapproving on something that might encourage girls and women to take up shooting. Perhaps they'd be a little more respect aimed towards women if there was a reasonable chance they were carrying. However. How-ever... do you know what those guns look like to me? They look like toys. And the scary thing is that strictly speaking, it is a toy.

Not a toy gun, but a toy – it's a device designed for recreational amusement by minors. Depending on the type of gun, guns straddle the line of tool and weapon – a bolt action rifle for example, while just as capable of putting a bullet through a man's head, is often a hunting tool and weapon, whereas a handgun has no real tool purpose, it's just a compact weapon. Whilst the gun used in question was more toy than tool, the things with guns is that they are always, no matter what their stated purpose is, 100% weapon. And I could see this gun being left in a corner. I'm not saying I'd do it, but from where I sit, it's not something utterly inconceivable. It's bright, it's colourful, it's small in scale and practically friendly looking – these things which might attract a child towards it, will similarly psychologically lessen the sense of danger that it gives off. For both children, and adults. Which is definitely the problem, because I can't see a family with children leaving a 9mm pistol casually in the corner, because those handguns look like sleek metal death.

So yeah, whilst I don't have big problem with firearms being advertised towards children – parents have the final say as they are minors, and I have little doubt there are many pre-teens who understand and respect the nature of guns who handle them properly, or I'm sure I'd see many more tragic accident stories – but those colours? Ah, no. Please. Way too toy like. They look like Nerf guns. And Nerf guns are coloured the way they are so no one panics over people carrying them: even at a distance, it's clear a Nerf gun is not a real firearm. That way no kids get shot at by a cop for playing with Nerf guns and the company doesn't get sued. Keep guns, looking like... guns, for fuck's sake.

It's difficult to talk about such a case without talking about gun control in America, so I'll try to add my opinion with the caveat that I'm not American, their culture is different to mine and I don't understand and can miss things that they'd put more / less importance on, I haven't looked deeply into the research here so please, this is just an opinion. If you believe I'm wrong, don't shriek at me, because I'll deem you a prick and ignore everything you say, even if it's of value. Gun control in America is always a complicated thing. As mentioned, there's a great difference of opinion between groups of people that see them as tools (and in all honesty, toys) versus people who sees them as only instruments of death. Could, or should America, ban all guns? I'm not of the opinion that is an achievable option. There's far too many guns out there, and you live in a country with grizzly-fucking-bears. Actual grizzly bears. You clearly have some need of them. Without going into too much detail about gun control, I can't see much of a problem restricting instant access of guns to people; waiting periods are good things. For one, it adds an obstacle to suicide attempts. The more difficult you can make suicide available, the lower the rates of suicide. And preventing people from access to assault weaponry? Hmm. America's history argues that they need those guns in case they need to overthrow their government. After all, you need to have equivalent to the military, right? Well, no.

You see, banning assault weapons would mean that while you would still have horrific mass shootings (that's a problem America can't quick fix overnight, because that seems more of a mental healthcare issue) it would lower casualties if the gun used in question went from firing 500 rounds a minute to 60. Could people still illegally get them? Sure. But the more obstacles you throw up, the harder the opportunity. Secondly, if you did need to overthrow the government, here's the brilliant thing: you get to break the law. It's kinda a requirement of being an outlaw. If you've got to the position where you believe that your government is so corrupt it needs to be violently overthrown, then you are in a position where you are not following the government's tyrannical laws, so guess what? You get to go illegally source a minigun. Have fun with that.

Let's summarize before I turn this into a page advocating the violent overthrow of America – which I am not doing, by the way, you shouldn't try to violently overthrow America, I was making a facetious point – that gun safety is paramount. So paramount. Guns are dangerous when operated in a certain way, if they're dangerous when not operated in a certain way then that's the gun being bloody defective and is a whole different kettle of fish. And the gun used in question makes me seriously wary with it's gosh-darn friendliness. It's a gun. It shouldn't be cheery. That's creepy as fuck and disassociates itself from what it actually is: a weapon. And while you can never prepare yourself for losing a child, or losing your sister by your own hands, decent preparation could have prevented such a terrible case.