Bill Harper on the Net

Tonight I joined a gym. Sorry, “fitness centre”.

However, unlike those people who joined to fulfil one of their New Years resolutions (”Spend a fortune joining a club I’ll never actually set foot in”), I’m not going there to lose weight. Believe me, I need to keep what little weight I have so I don’t blow away in strong winds. No, the plan is to actually bulk up a little by lifting weights and potentially causing myself serious injury. For the first few months most of the “bulk” will probably be “swelling”.

When I lived in Canberra I was a bit of a “fitness centre” junkie (though I hid it well), and I’m looking forward to getting back into it. I just hope they’ve worked out a way to increase muscle mass without having to sacrifice brain cells. At least that’s how it seemed to work back then. That’s why everyone in the room grunted — they’d already lost whatever part of the brain controls language.

Tonight, however, I didn’t get near a machine. Instead they gave me an endurance test — filling out the forms.

For those of you who’ve never set foot inside a fitness centre (or only did because you thought they had a vending machine), here’s what’s involved.

First there’s the “Membership agreement” form, where you agree to join up for a year and prove you are insane. There are lots of ticks, crosses, dates and numbers, all bearing my signature. I’m not sure if I’ve joined a “fitness centre” or approved the invasion of some foreign country.

Next is the “Personal Health Check” form, where you tick more boxes to prove you don’t suffer from any injuries or illnesses, or at least won’t admit to it. Just in case you are lying, they also make you sign an “Acknowledgement Release and Assumption of Risk” form which basically says it’s your fault if they find you wrapped around the treadmill like George Jetson.

And finally there’s the “Direct Debit Request (DDR) & Contract” form where you let them know which bank account is most likely to have something in it when the fortnightly payment is due. It also tells you how much it will cost should you get your sanity back and try to get out of the deal.

Despite all this, I’m feeling very positive about the whole thing. In fact, even though it’s only my first night I can see results already.

My writing hand is swelling up nicely.

It’s taken the best part of a month, and I hit one major stumbling block along the way, but I’ve finally finished Runaway 2 — the Dream of the Turtle.

Normally after spending days on end with a game like this, I feel a little flat. It’s like being wrapped up in a really good book, and then hitting the last page — you can’t quite believe it’s all over. (Unless it’s crap, in which case you can’t believe you wasted so much money on it.)

But not this time.

Why? Because the game ended with some of my absolute “pet hates” in storytelling, which include:

• the “dream sequence”
• the words “To be continued”
• Tom Cruise smiling.

Okay, so the game didn’t have Tom Cruise in it. But it have the other two things. The entire last act was the figment of someone’s imagination after being knocked on the head. (I like to think the guy who came up with the idea suffered a similar blow). And the game ends pretty much the same way it started — the girl is still missing, and the bad guys are still around. But we do manage to pick up a secret weapon: a turtle. Yeah, they’ll be quaking in their boots now. James Bond will probably have one as part of his arsenel in the next movie.

What’s really annoying is I have no idea when the next game will be out, or if there will even be a next game. It’s not as though they’ll be making millions of dollars from it. EB Games slapped a “25% off” sticker on it before they even put it on the shelves. (And I got it for half price — go figure.)

The only other game I’ve played that left me hanging like this was Dreamfall. But it had a much better storyline, and the author has promised that if he can’t make the video game he’ll finish the story some other way — book, comic, whatever.

Of course, he may have also been knocked on the head.

Well, the party’s over (although some New Years Eve bashes may still be winding up), and it’s time to head back to work.

The biggest hurdle will be getting out of bed when the alarm goes off rather than just hitting ’snooze’ and going back to sleep. (Thank goodness I didn’t get one of those alarm clocks that run away as a Christmas present.) Once I’m up I can shower and dress pretty much on autopilot, which works really well providing I don’t grab a pair of jeans when I’m after a shirt.

Being the first day back after such a long break, I’ll be playing catch-up for a while. But if I get there by nine, I should be back to full speed by… some time on Thursday. Maybe.

First I’ll have to clear out the hundreds of emails sitting in my inbox about work-related issues I’ve spent the entire break trying to forget. I’ll probably just delete them because:

• I won’t know what they’re talking about anyway
• if I’ve forgotten about the issue, then maybe they have too, and we can drop the whole thing.

Once my inbox is empty, and my fingers have recovered from hitting ‘Delete’ a million times, it’ll be time for the main event: the Christmas Holiday Showdown.

You know the drill: you all stand around telling each other what you did over the break, and hope you don’t come across as a lazy slob. You can be one. You just can’t sound like one.

So you have two choices:

• actually do something constructive with your time — build a shed, take the family on holiday, cure cancer, etc.
• make something up.

Most people go for the second option, because it’s cheaper and you’re less likely to lose a thumb. But you do need to come up with a convincing story, which can take time. This is why people have trouble sleeping on Sunday nights — they’re too busy making up stories about what they did on the weekend.

(Hint: Having kids is a definite advantage, because you can say you took them to the beach/movies/hospital and everyone will believe you. If you don’t have any yet, talk to your partner.)

But for once I don’t have to make anything up. Not only did Lynda and I go on a cruise, I’ve got dozens of photos I can use as evidence. So for the first time in years I can get a decent night’s sleep.

Which is just as well, because I’ll need all my strength to hammer that ‘Delete’ key.