I’m pretty tired. Having one of those days where you wander through work in a dream-like state. Work was shit. Just really busy and lots of people moaning down the phone at my eardrum. I need to rest my bones and gather up my reserves to get through tomorrow, but as usual my mind is buzzing while my body is falling asleep.
To bring you all up to speed with what i’ve been up to lately, I was in York for the weekend with Falling. We had a good enough time of it, we bought both The Island and Crash on dvd. I’ve seen The Island at the cinema and I really enjoyed it, but Falling watched it for the first time and didn’t think it was so great. Crash was really good, that type of film (A bunch of people whose lives inter-twine) has been done before but this was well done. I got the feeling Sandra Bullock was just in there to attract a bigger audience though as her character was pretty pointless.
We caught the last 20 minutes of the rugby at the weekend: Scotland 18 – England 12 !!! For once we actually put in a decent performance and won a big game. Falling doesn’t like rugby much but I have to admit i’m getting more interested in it. It’s good seeing all the sports on t.v. at the moment – the Winter Olympics just finished at the weekend (I particularly enjoyed the Moguls and the Slalom events) and the Commonwealth Games which starts in 2 weeks should be interesting. Also, the Scottish Cup semi-finals (football/soccer) take place on the weekend of the 1st/2nd April.
The two big teams here in Edinburgh have been drawn out of the hat to play each other: Hibernian and Heart of Midlothian. Glasgow Celtic were knocked out earlier in the Cup but it’s nice to see another team doing so well (It’s normally the Old Firm, Glasgow Celtic & Glasgow Rangers, as the fore-runners) and i’d like to see Hearts win the Cup. Whichever side gets through will face a smaller team in the final: Either Gretna, Hamilton Athletic or Dundee which hasn’t happened in decades apparently. Should be good.
I just watched Stargate SG-1 and Battlestar Galactica. I think the SG-1 episode was from Season 9. It was totally different (I have the dvds upto Season 7/seen the start of Season 
as Jack wasn’t there at all and there was a new guy on the SG-1 team called Mitchell. It was okay, but I had a few niggles with it. I hope it doesn’t become watered down as cast members leave. I might stop collecting it after Season 8 depending on how it works out.
Talking of Season 8, the boxset came out on dvd this month. It’s £70 in the shops but Amazon are selling it for around £40 (Just over £50 if you buy it with Serenity which also came out this month) so if i’m a good boy I might treat myself to that after I’ve bought all my train tickets etc.
Battlestar Galactica was good – it was one of those episodes where there’s a reporter making life uncomfortable for the Galactica crew, every television show has one, and it worked because within 2 minutes I hated the reporter with a passion, lol. Don’t want to see anyone causing trouble for my little Sci-Fi family. Nice little twist at the end too.
I finished the last Earthsea book, The Other Wind. It was really good but I was sad to finish it. There is one more book, “Tales of Earthsea” I think it’s called, but it’s just a collection of stories and I doubt if it will be the same characters again. I might get it later when I have nothing to read.
Right now i’m reading another Ursula Le Guin book Falling got me: “The Birthday of The World and other stories”. It’s supposed to be science fiction and it reads totally differently from the Earthsea books. Without getting too explicit, let’s just say that the first part deals with a race of people who repeatedly go through a kind of puberty but can come out different each time – male or female – depending on who they first come into contact with, and then they all sleep with each other. It’s different but no worse than other stuff i’ve read.
My little nephew is ill again. He went into hospital today with breathing problems same as last time. They discharged him with an inhaler though and so long as he’s still eating they seem to think he’ll be okay. They think it might be a childhood form of bronchitis.
It’s Shrove Tuesday (Can’t say I’ve ever looked up what that actually means) today. To the masses that’s “Pancake Tuesday” – basically you’re supposed to stuff yourself with pancakes and treats before Lent starts tomorrow. Lent is a period of fasting (or just doing something different) to symbolise the 40 days and nights Jesus spent fasting in the desert, and it ends at Easter when we give chocolate eggs and roll boiled, painted chickens’ eggs down a hill (To symbolise rolling the stone away from his tomb). This is what Catholics do anyway, I don’t know about everyone else.
I was raised as a Catholic but I’ve given it up. I just found too many contradictions and to be honest church was boring. I don’t follow any religion at the moment and don’t feel the need to. I have changing beliefs about life and at the moment I believe that there are ghosts but the reason they exist is something like there being some unfulfilled action or something, i’m not quite sure. Enough rational people around me have said they’ve seen ghosts so I believe them. I don’t believe all those television mediums though, they’re just conning people out of their money.
I don’t believe in a heaven or something like that simply because eternity is too damn long. No matter how blissful the experience, I can’t even fathom eternity (because it’s eternity of course!) so I can’t see a feeling or an experience lasting that long. I believe when we die it’s like when I turn my monitor off or flick a light switch off. Just like that *snaps his fingers* the candle is snuffed out. Blackness. Nothingness. To some people that may seem sad but I find it comforting. If I live to be 80 years old i’ll be content to die, having lived long enough.
Anyway, these are my beliefs at the moment. I don’t blinker myself and ignore other ideas because I don’t feel the need to set my beliefs in stone. They may change. I may take up religion again later in life, who knows? At the moment I don’t need it, but I respect those people who do find comfort in it. I don’t know if there’s a greater plan. I believe in Mother Nature or Gaia or whatever you want to call it. There is a life force in life itself but whether that’s the result of aGod-like being..i don’t know. I generally subscribe to the Big Bang theory and no, I have not read the actual theory, i just know the layman’s version, so no doubt there are holes in that theory aswell, but i’m happy with it at the moment. To me it makes sense and also includes the possibility of life on other planets, perhaps not in our Solar System or even our Galaxy but possibly in others. Hey if it happened here…why not eh?
Okay, that whole episode just popped into my head so i’ve gone way off track. Where was I? Ah pancakes! I’m munching my way through pancakes dripping with margarine right now – delicious. I don’t have to do the whole Lent thing but I may make some effort just for the sake of it. I don’t believe you need a religion to remind you to try to be a better person – I have my “code of conduct”, my own set of morals, and I think that I was raised pretty good.
So I might just try to do that – be a better person. I can be either really nice or really nasty sometimes. In my pre-atheist days I gave up sugar in my tea and coffee during Lent and I haven’t looked back. I keep trying to convince dad to do the same but he won’t hear of it, lol.
I’ve been exercising the creative muscle recently so i’m going to tinker around with my little artistic dabblings again now. When I have something to show for it i’ll post it here.
G’night all you folks.
