Insomnia and riser chairs

                         Once again I have had another night without sleep; it shows.

I promise you that I did try to smile, it just didn't quite work out as my mouth refused to co-operate.

As those who know me well can guess from this photograph, I was not able to make the trek the thirty feet or so from the living room to the bed room. Despite the amazing riser chair that a friend of my mom's kindly gave me for free, my body refused to co-operate with the planned long-distance hike. I have spent the night playing with the chair control going from almost horizontal to almost vertical. While this was great fun, it didn't really accomplish much other than make me giggle. 


Yes, I have a lot of medical issues that have a big impact on my life, but here is one thing that can kick your butt whether you are healthy or, like me, have conditions such as fibromyalgia, ME/CFS, Lupus etc: Insomnia. Okay, yes, it is going to have a far worse impact on someone like me who already has severe fatigue to deal with, but it isn't pleasant for anyone. 

It is difficult to get accurate figures on just how widespread insomnia is, though a recent survey by Dreams found that almost one third of the over 15,000 respondents said that they never woke feeling refreshed. Almost two thirds felt that they weren't getting enough sleep. That is a heck of a lot of people waking up feeling tired. 

There are things that various sleep researchers over the years have suggested, for example: 

• Keep the bedroom for sleeping and sex - remove the tv and keep the computer out of the room. 
• Do something relaxing prior to sleep - so that means no horror movies likely to haunt your dreams, folks. 
• Lights are best kept off as your body responds to the dark by producing melatonin to stimulate the pineal gland and send you off to night-night land. 
• Don't eat or drink anything stimulating for several hours prior to bed - that means caffeine is out for all those coffee lovers out there. 

The list goes on and lets be honest, most of us who really suffer from insomnia have tried all the things on the list desperately hoping that this time they will finally work for us. So far I'm on the losing team, but I'm hoping that some or all of the helpful ideas that sleep specialists mention have worked for some of my friends out there is cyber-world. I am spending an increasing amount of time meditating, not aimed particularly at helping me sleep, but you never know; it could be a nice side effect. 

In the here and now, I just hope that you managed to get a decent night's sleep and are ready to have a good Sunday. I am going to head back to Duolingo and see if I can mess up some more German phrases because my talk to type programme doesn't understand how to spell some of the more interesting words. Have fun - and for my fellow insomniacs, I wish you a good day with people who understand you are feeling tetchy and know not to do anything likely to incur your wrath. 

Dead Rising: Watchtower, movie review.

I have been doing online competitions since the beginning of the year and it is proving to be an entertaining hobby. I have won quite a variety of things, ranging from DVD's to vouchers for a holiday cottage. The latest prize to drop onto the doormat (also a prize) was a DVD of 'Dead Rising: Watchtower'. I'm going to give you early warning that I am about to discuss the contents of the film and the storyline.

Based on the video game series this movie was far more entertaining than I was expecting it to be. Set some ten years after the initial outbreak survivors of zombie bites receive a medicine called 'zombrex' which keeps them from changing into one of the living dead with a taste for human flesh. When a zombie outbreak occurs, a twelve-mile wall is erected around the town to prevent the spread. Healthy people are directed to a particular location within the town, where the large number of bite survivors from previous outbreaks are given their preventative medication.

The sarcastic journalist hero from the earlier games, Frank West, makes an appearance in this film as an expert guest on a news show that is covering the outbreak. He manages to frustrate and anger the news-reporter within moments of first opening his mouth, as he insists that the residents trapped within the walls are all going to die. 

Inside the walls journalist duo of camera woman Jordan and reporter Chase are after a scoop that will make them famous, or at least Chase is. The duo become separated as the preventative medication fails to work and those who should be safe, have a sudden desire for human flesh. Jordan makes it out, Chase is trapped inside with two women who seem to have a far better grasp of the realities of zombie fighting than the reporter does.

Between zombies, bike gangs, a government willing to deploy the most extreme of tactics in order to contain the zombie outbreak and - worst of all from my point of view - a clown zombie (argh!) Chase, Crystal and Maggie have a hard task just trying to stay alive, let alone making it out of the town. Meanwhile, Jordan is having her adventures as she tries to prove that she is not infected, after witnessing FEZA and the police shooting those fleeing the zombies as they approached the gate to freedom. Just who is the bad guy and will she make it out alive? Good questions and not something I am going to answer. Instead I will leave you to watch the film and find out for yourselves.

What I particularly like about this movie is that the zombies act like zombies, not some warped CGI version crawling along the ceiling. The action moves along at a good pace with plenty of dark humour included; at times you don't quite know whether to laugh or cringe and this combination works well. It isn't an all-out rom-com-zom movie like Shaun of the Dead, as Simon Pegg put it, but it is still entertaining.

If, like me, you enjoy a good zombie movie, then this one is worth a watch. It isn't the best zombie movie you are going to come across - for me Romero remains the best - but it is a decent film with interesting characters and a pretty good plot line. I would definitely recommend it.

Brain hop-scotch

For the past week or so my brain has gone into hyper-drive, jumping from one subject to another and finding it impossible to settle. I am struggling to know how I feel at the moment, what I want to do to fill my time and a million other things. Nothing feels right, I feel sort of mentally itchy and uncomfortable in my own skin. 

I have also got it into my head that I have offended someone; a specific someone who is a friend and I simply cannot get the thought to go away. I have no clue why I think that, I cannot think of anything that I may have done but the thought and feeling remain there anyway. I do not exactly know what to say or do; I mean how do you ask someone if you have done something to offend when in all likelihood asking them that is likely to cause more offence than if you had just behaved like a sane person to begin with. 

Ah, well. Sanity is, perhaps, over-rated anyway!

I have started drawing again (and cannot remember if I already blogged about that) as I enjoy it and thought that it might be good for my hands, which have been incredibly painful lately. It has got to have been a good ten years or so since I last picked up an pencil, so I am actually quite pleased with the first result - not that I am going to put it on here! That would just be disturbing.... if only because of my chosen subject matter. I tend to draw disturbing images, the dead or horror figures, things that live in nightmares and horror movies. For some reason when people meet me they never think that I am going to be a horror or metal fan. I can never understand why; I presume I am supposed to look like some archaic 1980s view of 'rockers' or something rather than just a fat chick in a wheelchair. 

I have also decided to start getting some of my short story ideas down in writing (thank goodness for Dragon; mine is named Sid). Again I do have a tendency to head straight towards horror and sci-fi, because that is what I know. It is what I read most of, although intellectual snobs do like to put down anything that they 'genre' fiction. All I can say is that they are missing out and therefore likely to be the first one's eaten come the zombie apocalypse. Oh, come on! Like there aren't a few politicians out there that you secretly hope zombies will chow down on.