Stray Dog Strut

I like technology. I like the new PlayStation Portable. I like that I just played Fifa 2006 on it and managed to score a goal and win. I like the jaw-dropping visuals of Need For Speed on it. I like that my sister’s fiance let me playtest this amazing handheld.

I like programs that talk to me. I like that my printing software says “printing complete” in an American accent. I like that MSN Explorer just said “Good Evening” to me. I like that I can change my startup sound to hear Lara say “Welcome Back”.

I like the style of my blogger template. The blackness works well and I get to put a picture of Spike Spiegel on the main page – cool! I like the uncluttered, simple layout. I like that it’s my very own blog. I like that I’ve managed to keep it going.

I like modern architecture. I like buildings within buildings and fusions of steel and glass. I like angular, precise shapes. I like buildings that look like they could slot into different shapes. I like studying buildings, puzzling over how to model them in 3d. I like to content myself with amateurish attempts at modelling buildings in 3d.

I like old architecture. I like statues and columns. I like memorials and cathedrals. I like gothic architecture against a purple sky. I like castles. I like learning about castle defences. I like that I got taught about castle defences in my high school History class.

I like to sing when i’m drunk. I like to dance sometimes when i’m sober. I like that I just boogied to the jingle MSN Explorer plays when it installs. I like running about the office at work. I like to stand still in bare feet and try to “feel” the ground beneath me. I like to slow down my body movements and pay close attention to the tug and pull of tendons and the shifting of my joints as I move. I like my face. I like the shape of my face. I like the expressions my face makes. I like my eyes. I like that they are my eyes. I like to think of myself as an anime hero with deep blue eyes. I like my moustache. I like trimming my beard hairs. I like getting my hair cut.

I like being slim. I like to think I can still run pretty fast. I like to remind myself I am too unfit to run pretty fast. I like to try to prove myself wrong. I like climbing. I like performing complex hand manouveres to get around an obstacle. I like working out puzzles in the rock. I like suprising myself by staying on the rock by my finger tips. I like being close to the rock. I like to feel that I have a connection to the rock. I like that the rock usually lets me win. I like that I have never had a serious fall. I like that I have never broken a bone.

I like art. I like browsing artwork on the web. I like the amazing inking people do in Photoshop. I like the anime style. I like superheroes and comics. I like wallpapers and logos. I like the simplistic and the technical. I like subtle tones and vibrant colours. I like customizing windows and applications with different styles. I like proper grafitti. I like Ross’ satirical drawings of me at work. I like adorning my work desk with pictures.

I like breathing. I like the smell of turf burning in Ireland. I like the trail of whiteness left by a passing jet. I like sunrise and sunset. I like to see rainbows and a red sky at night. I like stars. I like to see the stars above my house. I like the quietness of night. I like to be still and think in the darkness.

I like the crunch of leaves in autumn. I like to drink from a freshwater spring. I like to place the first footfalls on new fallen snow. I like the smell of flowers and the bursts of colour in gardens in summer. I like lawns trimmed as neat as golf courses. I like tidy hedges and equal spaces between plants in the borders.

I like company. I like to talk for hours on the phone to my friend. I like seeing my friend and just walking and talking. I like going to the cinema. I like having popcorn at the cinema. I like my friend’s artwork very much. I like climbing with my friends. I like talking about old times with my friends.

I like to be near my girlfriend. I like that I have someone to talk to and someone to just be silent beside. I like showing my girlfriend the things I like. I like going to new places and discovering new things together. I like our differences aswell as our likenesses. I like that she is studying and learning. I like that we both love anime. I like that we both love travel. I like having a joint savings account. I like that we both wear rings. I like writing Christmas cards together and always adding her name to any gift I give.

I like my family. I like living with parents who respect my independence. I like my brother and seeing my brother. I like my brother’s girlfriend and the colour she brings to his life. I like my sister. I like that she is happy and settled with her fiance. I like that they have a son, my beautiful nephew. I like that when he can talk I will be called Uncle. I like playing with my nephew and making him laugh.

I like my dog. I like hugging my dog. I like treating him as he deserves to be treated, being kind to him and caring for him as I would a friend. I like giving him treats and marking his brithday. I like seeing him rip open Christmas presents. I like telling people about my dog.

I like dreams. I like imaginings. I like that as a child I would imagine cartoon characters running alongside the passenger window of mum’s car as we travelled. I like reading about fantastical adventures and heroes. I like to imagine feats of strength and daring. I like the idea of heroes with super-powers. I like the idea of forces of darkness. I like mages and power and glowing staffs of light. I like unicorns and centaurs. I like Egyptian gods and films like The Never Ending Story.

I like horse-riding archers. I like huge armies and regimentation. I like demonstrations of power. I like strategy and precision. I like over-whelming odds and playing the underdog. I like two-pronged attacks and one-man armies. I like luring the enemy into a trap. I like war tactics and technical terms. I like ninjas and silent assasins. I like snipers. I like playing the sniper and taking head shots.

I like extinguishing the threat of nuclear annihalation. I like playing the anti-hero, the renegade, the reject. I like completing the story and saving the girl. I like playing as Solid Snake. I like to remind people how cool Solid Snake is. I like fighting cool villians such as Revolver Ocelot. I like everything about Hideo Kojima’s Metal Gear Solid universe.

I like archaeology and paleontology. I like the references to archaeology in Stargate and Tombraider. I like “raiding” tombs with Lara. I like the guys at Core Design who did alot of work on Tombraider before they lost it after Angel of Darkness. I like Angel of Darkness alot despite the reviews. I like the look of Tombraider: Legend as it looks like a return to the ethos of the first game – tombs and caverns and exploration.

I like science-fiction. I like starships and light-travel. I like stargates and alien cultures. I like artificial intelligence and robotics. I like colonisation and terraforming. I like space-craft designs and imagining life in space. I like classical music and space scenes. I like unmoving objects stranded in space. I like ship captains and journeys. I like spaceship weapons and thrusters. I like planets and new phenomena. I like exploring the unknown from the comfort of my living room.

I like that I wrote this post tonight. I like that I opened a door in my mind and let all this crap pour out. I like to think that someone might read it. I like to pretend that someone might like it.

I’ve just finished reading Tehanu by Ursula Le Guin. It’s the fourth book in the Earthsea series. The first book, A Wizard of Earthsea, has to be one of my all-time favourite books. I love the characters, the magic, the endless descriptions of this fictional world Earthsea, and all the songs and stories and deeds that permeate the main plot.

The first book tells the story of a goatherd, Duny, who has great power in him. After a demonstration of that power, he is given his true name, Ged, by the mage Ogion the Silent and started on the path to becoming a wizard. However his pride is his downfall and he unleashes an evil that haunts him long since. The whole book is about his journey through fear, hope, friendship, hatred, and ultimately death. Death plays a big role in all the books and the description is one of the best I’ve read yet. The land where the stars never set..

As the main character in A Wizard of Earthsea, Ged is fascinating. He earns the nickname Sparrowhawk for the bird that is usually seen to alight on his wrist. He has made an appearance in all four books so far but my heart still lies with the first book as I first read it years ago at school. I found it again thanks to Google=)

Sparrowhawk doesn’t have such a big part in the third and fourth books as the main character is Tenar who we are introduced to at the start of the third book, but their relationship develops from then and we see more sides to Sparrowhawk’s character because of this.

The fourth book is by far the most saddening. I tend to absorb the feeling of the chapter i’m reading and take on that mood unintentionally. I was pretty angry around the time we were introduced to Regin in the Black Magician Trilogy (Another fantastic read, by Trudi Canavan), and the end of the fourth Harry Potter book left me feeling pretty depressed.

I find it interesting to see the different take authors have on wizardry. In both the Earthsea and Harry Potter books there is a school for wizards, however the Earthsea novels are more grown up, at times more grown up than the Black Magician trilogy too. In Harry Potter wizards have wands, in Earthsea staffs, and in the Black Magician trilogy just their bare hands. The terms are different too – in Harry Potter “wizard” is used alot, Earthsea “wizard”, “mage”, “witch” and “sorcerer”, and in the Black Magician books “magician”.

Dragons play a big part in the Earthsea books too, as they do in another brilliant book, Eragon by Christopher Paolini, however they are described in more depth, being more human-like than beast like in their goals. I especially liked the description of a dragon’s eye being full of laughter. They are greedy, proud, strong creatures, centuries older than mankind. Saphira the dragon in Eragon is certainly more compassionate, but the dragons in Earthsea are not evil, and often perform favours for the Dragonlord Sparrowhawk when it suits them.

I got A Wizard of Earthsea on Ebay a few years ago after Googling a description of just one passage I remembered from the book (I couldn’t remember the name). Falling recently got me the first four in a big book The Earthsea Quartet. There is no description on the back of the book as to what it’s about so I guess it’s aimed at people who know what Earthsea is all about. I would recommend reading the first book first. I read the other three secretly hoping Sparrowhawk would be in all three and thankfully he was. I adore him as a hero.

Falling also got me The Other Wind which is the fifth book in the series. Having just read the back of the book I’m pleased to see both Sparrowhawk and Tenar make a reappearance (this was hinted at at the end of Tehanu aswell) but I’m not sure how much of one as Ursula Le Guin is both kind and cruel to her characters (read the books, you’ll see what I mean). I’ll start that book tomorrow. It shouldn’t take too long to read as I only started reading Tehanu on monday and that was only on the buses to and from work (about 2 hours a day). If a book is engrossing I can charge through it – i’m still sad to finish it though!

I would recommend anyone to read the Earthsea books – definately A Wizard of Earthsea – if fantasy is your thing. Alot of attention to detail has gone into describing this fictional world, with maps and names for everything (magic is all about names afterall) and despite being fiction, it does strike a chord with today’s society. It’s also a story of heros and heroines, kings and common folk, and evokes a passionate response from this reader. To be able to experience all the variety and colour in the rich world of Earthsea through the eyes of such an intriguing character as Sparrowhawk is Ursula Le Guin’s greatest gift to everyone who reads the books.

“Tolk” is the true name for a stone in the Old Speech.

Just finished watching the Brit Awards. It wasn’t bad. The wonderfully talented KT Tunstall won Best British Female Solo Artist. She’s great – she sounded great live and played both the guitar and drums, a true musician – and she’s one of our own, home-grown singers, from Fife which is just across the river from Edinburgh. I got her album for Christmas and love it.

I have to say I was a bit disappointed that she said “I’m proud to be British” but I guess she had to say that considering it was the Brit Awards and she was in London. I just hate that word. I don’t mind “the United Kingdom” so much because it implies a collection of ‘kingdoms’ coming together, but to say we’re British denies us all our identity.

I think the worst thing that could happen to a country is to lose it’s identity – and yes Scotland is a country, and not a “state of England” as a Japanese girl once said to me – and don’t get me started on the likes of Madonna saying England for the whole island – It’s Scotland, England and Wales you know? Get a map. Poor Wales, they get a worse time of it than we do – but the Scots are good friends with the Welsh (The Six Nations rugby match was very amicable although we lost!).

There’s also all that nonsense about changing our national flag – The Saint Andrew’s cross – because it ‘might affend other religions’ – unbelievable! It’s our flag, I don’t even see it as religious myself although I guess it is. I do prefer it to the Lion Rampant, but I do like the red lion on that too. I love that our symbol is a thistle – a beautiful yet stubborn wee thing, lol. Once (if ever) my arms beef up I want to get a tattoo of a thistle on my shoulder=)

I think once you lose your identity you lose it all – the culture, the language (Oh by the way, more money has been invested in keeping the Gaelic language alive and teaching it in schools – which is excellent!!) and the history.

Anyway, don’t read into this the wrong way – we get on pretty well with our neighbours, and personally I have nothing against the English except the Royal Family (Long live free speech=P), but we should respect our differences aswell as our common ties. One nation. Many cultures. as the advertisements go for Scotland – they should have a similar slogan for the whole island.

[Respect difference. Hate racism.]

Had to be said.

They also had that stupid twat Chris Evans hosting the awards. I can’t stand that guy. He actually thinks he’s still funny (was he even funny to begin with?). All he’s famous for is going out with (a very young) Billie Piper, being a DJ for Virgin radio and getting sacked because he’s a total waster..and yet people still actually want to see him on T.V.? It the same people who read all those trashy gossip magazines/newspapers, I can’t stand it all, there’s more important things to life than bitching about celebrities. They are only human, give them a break.

**Rambo realises he just contradicted himself with the insults aimed at Chris Evans, my bad, i’m only human myself**

I wanted to see the Arctic Monkeys play live, and i’m quite interested in getting their album, but although they won a couple of awards they couldn’t make it. The Kaiser Chiefs were there, again i’m a bit interested in their album, but they couldn’t even bother to say proper acceptance speeches which I thought was a bit ungrateful. But I guess that’s Rock N’ Roll right? Don’t give a shit about your fans and they’ll love you for it.

Green Day won Best International Artist but sadly they couldn’t make it either – why should such a popular American band give a toss about a small island of fans anyway?lol But it was just good to see their faces on T.V.

I was lecturing my dad about all these bands even though i’m not very up-to-date on music at the moment myself. I had to remind him who the Gorillaz were – I actually sang Clint Eastwood, can you believe it? Even more unbelievable, he actually recognised the song=P

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