Please visit this article's new location. Thank you.

At least, not yet. Maybe not for a while. But definitely not within the time that we originally planned.

There are too many signs happening around us that are pointing to Australia NOT being the place for us to go to in the near future.

• My career taking off, with interesting opportunities arising.
• The Australian Dollar losing ground against the NZ Dollar, meaning it'll be more expensive to move to Australia than what we planned for.
• The new Industrial Relations laws making it a fracked up environment for working (one of my friends was fired this week, because 'unfair dismissal' was no longer illegal. She was replaced with someone who would do the same job for less money. I wonder how many such stories are happening around Australia now that it's ok for employers to fire whoever they want, for whatever reason they like, without penalty.)
• Property Investment laws favouring purchasing in New Zealand over Australia.

And there are other signs too, which I won't go into right now.

Deidre and I talked about it last night. She's frustrated, because she has really wanted to go, but for one reason or another, throughout the past decade, various things have come up to stop her from going. I mentioned that with everything we want to do, everything we want to achieve, that maybe the only real solution that the universe is pointing us to is this:

• Stay in NZ
• Build up a property investment portfolio
• Replace working income with passive income from properties (eg. retire within 5 years)
• Build up a property investment portfolio in Australia
• Live in Australia only when we don't need to work there
• Have the choice of living wherever we choose, whenever we choose, between NZ and Australia, depending on the weather

Wealth creates independence from all kinds of employment and government related hassles. Both Deidre and I are thinking that we're being encouraged to follow a certain path to achieve our dreams the more interesting way - by achieving wealth.

Deidre and I went to our first property investment seminar as a couple last night. First time ever for her, and maybe 5th time for me. It was good. I got a lot more from it than I expected, namely Deidre very excited about investment strategies and goals. Excited enough to decide that this is the way of our future.

Indeed it is. I can't see any other way of guaranteeing an easy retirement before I'm 45.

Well, I use the term 'retirement' loosely. What I mean is, I'll be doing the work that I want to do, instead of the work that I might feel I have to do, in order to pay bills. Property investment will create a passive income that will continue to pay the bills even if I choose to do nothing for a month or more.

A passive income is that income that comes into your bank account without you having to do anything to earn it. Property investment is one way of setting that up, so that rental income on properties exceeds the costs of those properties, and thus provide you with a profit - a passive income.

I've been educating myself on strategies and information for the past couple of years. I'm getting closer to using what I know.

What's the difference between a rich person and a poor person? Knowledge and action.

After moving over to my new categorisation method of having them listed up the top there (eg. Blogging, Dating, Spirituality, etc), I discover that the most popular category is 'Dating'. Now that the category is so obvious, visitors are exploring them. In just the past 24 hours, I've had a number of people accessing the dating category, with 2 of them spending a large amount of time exploring all the articles.

Interestingly, the most popular article of all time is 'How to make your Asian girlfriend eternally happy', with a lot of people finding it by searching for related terms. There must be a lot of people out there searching for information on asian girlfriends and how to make them happy. I might have to do a few more articles on this.... And dating in general.

So the benefits of 'obvious' categorisation is that it shows your visitors what kind of content is available on your site/blog, and leads them to view more of it. The Categories drop-down menu I used to have was useless. In fact, I'm not even sure anyone actually looks at those drop-down menus on the right there, 'cause no one seemed to go to any of the content they pointed to. This new form of categorisation is much better.

"Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, Choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players, and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol and dental insurance. Choose fixed-interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisure wear and matching luggage. Choose a three piece suit on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who you are on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing sprit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pishing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked-up brats you have spawned to replace yourself. Choose your future. Choose life...

But why would I want to do a thing like that?"
- Trainspotting

People go through life pretending they're doing things for themselves, but really, we all know that people do things because it's what they THINK they should be doing.

They do things because society, family, friends, or work expects it of them. They dress a certain way to fit in with their friends or workplace standards. They go out to places because it's where their friends like to go. They get involved with people that their friends and/or family would like them to be involved with.

Acceptance is very important to people, and the only way to be accepted by a group is to be like that group.

Even the so-called 'rebels'' are fitting in with a group of other rebels. They dress the same way, they do the same things, and they discuss the same subjects.

The only times people are actually doing something for themselves is when no one else is involved. But even then, under some circumstances, they might be doing it so that they can talk about it to others and allow them to be accepted for it.

People do things because it's what they think is expected of them. They feel completely uncomfortable doing something that no one else is doing, because of how others might think of them. Every time someone has the option of doing something new and different, a very strong thought is, 'How will others react to this? Will I still be accepted by them?"

A very big influence on people's lives is how they were raised by their parents. Even though they may disagree with some of the values and 'rules' of their parents, continuing to be accepted by one's parents is still a very strong influence. 'Mother wouldn't approve', or 'my father told me never to do that...' These and many more such things continue controlling how people live their lives.

The programming of the past does not need to determine how we live our lives today.

Our parents programmed us to be as they wanted us to be, which was usually a reflection of themselves. They don't take into account our own individuality, and it's often as people become teenagers and begin to explore who they really are, that conflict between themselves and their parents occur.

"I brought you into this world, I can take you out."
- Bill Cosby

Parents generally believe their children to be their 'creation', so to speak. They raised their children to be a particular way, and while they 'program' them to be that way, they are also programming themselves to always be the programmer. When their children start to exert their own individuality, conflict often occurs because the parents are generally unable to accept that their 'creation' is becoming something separate to themselves. A certain element of control and ownership is being taken away from them.

Those children who continue to grow up by avoiding conflict, and generally following the wishes of their parents, are the ones who live the lives their parents want them to live. They are unable to live their own life.

Society itself is probably the biggest influence on people's lives as they grow up and become adults. They are the 'victims' of manipulation and conformity.

Society and the media work together in convincing people that they must be like everyone else in order to fit in and be accepted. This is good for society in general, and for those who control it, but it isn't exactly good for the individual who THINKS they are living their own life.

"The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it."
- Morpheus, The Matrix

The Matrix movie is an excellent story about the control that society has over individuals. People believe that they need to conform to the expectations of society, family, friends, etc, in order to be accepted and continue living their lives.

As Morpheus said in the quote above, people who are part of the system will fight to protect it. And anyone who is not part of the system is their enemy.

Don't we see this in our world today? Individually and globally, people who are not part of accepted society are perceived as a threat. People who live their lives according to different rules are a threat because those rules aren't OUR rules. They are therefore an enigma.

Anyone who prefers to live life according to their own rules is to be shunned, deemed an outcast, a weirdo, a loner or even a loser.

I have a simple philosophy - "If it feels right, and if it feels good, and it's not harming anyone or has the potential of harming anyone, then do it."

Live your life for yourself, respecting yourself and others along the way. Do what feels right for you. Don't live your life according to what you believe others expect of you, whoever they might be. Live YOUR life.

"I know you're out there. I can feel you now. I know that you're afraid... afraid of us. You're afraid of change. I don't know the future. I didn't come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came here to tell how it's going to begin. I'm going to hang up this phone, and then show these people what you don't want them to see. I'm going to show them a world without you. A world without rules or controls, borders or boundaries. A world where anything is possible. Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you."
- Neo, The Matrix

My dictionary defines 'platonic' as: free from physical desire. Platonic relationships are those relationships between men and women where there is 'no physical desire'. However, this isn't always true.

I believe that the only times a relationship between a man and a woman is truly platonic is when:

1. They've been in a relationship and it's ended, and after a period of time for adjustment, they have moved on and accepted the relationship is over
   
   
2. The man is gay and therefore has no desire for the woman.
   
   
3. The man is in a satisfying relationship already, and therefore has no desires for the woman who is his friend.
   
   
4. The man finds her sexually unattractive to him, and there is no feelings of desire.
   

If any of these conditions are met, then there is a platonic relationship.

Many women believe that they can have purely platonic relationships with men, but quite often those men are simply holding back the expression of their desires. This is because they know that she is either uninterested in them sexually or romantically, or she's unavailable; or he's unavailable himself - and yet he still desires her. And so she's completely surprised when, after months or years of what she's considered to be a 'platonic relationship', he suddenly blurts out his desire for her. It usually ends in the end of the friendship, or it becomes friendship that just isn't as good as it used to be. Very rarely does it turn out positively, where it results in a romantic relationship. Sometimes the friendship can become stronger, but it certainly requires hard work and maturity from all concerned.

One of the biggest reasons a man will find himself attracted to a woman is often because she simply talks to him, and gives him her time and attention. To the man, this is an 'obvious' sign that she likes him! Also to the man, 'like' means 'wants sex' or a 'relationship'. However, the man is conflicted when she doesn't give out any of the other signals that he expects from a woman who is attracted to him. She doesn't act shy around him, or doesn't touch him, or doesn't do any of the other things that he'd expect from a woman attracted to him. So he keeps his feelings to himself, hoping that one day he'll either have the courage to talk to her about those feelings, or that she'll 'recognise' her own 'true feelings' and declare her undying love for him. This is the fantasy of the platonic man.

I used to be such a man, many years ago. It almost seems like another lifetime. I used to think that any woman who gave me her time and attention was attracted to me. If she was remotely attractive, I immediately developed an attraction for her. I was often confused about why my friendship with her wasn't getting me the results that I dreamed about. I thought that being her friend would result in us getting into a relationship. And when I eventually told them about my feelings, they told me that they just didn't think of me like that and wanted to continue the friendship. Like the average fool, I interpreted this to mean that they just weren't ready to talk to me about their feelings, and that I needed to persevere. But of course, it never worked out.

Most men are insecure. They are crying out for attention, and when they get it they think it means love, and they latch onto it and try to develop it. The truth of the matter is that it's not the love of the woman that they are seeking - it's their own love for themselves.

It's about masculinity, and accepting that you're a man, with manly desires and needs. When you can appreciate your own masculinity, it gives you confidence and platonic relationships take on a whole new meaning. For a start, when you are confident with yourself you will find that you can be choosy about your preferred partner. You will want someone who fulfills you, instead of just any woman who gives you attention. Women want a confident man who doesn't hang on their every word or gesture. Rejecting your masculinity in order to be what you think the woman wants is a mistake, as you're only rejecting the essence of who you are.

When you appreciate your strengths, you won't need to latch onto the attention of women to raise your self-esteem. You will have enough of it already. Instead, you will be able to develop a quality, intimate relationship with a woman who satisfies you emotionally, physically and spiritually, AND you will be able to have platonic relationships with women who offer something else in your life, like shared hobbies or interests.

Preferably, you will build that quality, intimate relationship with a woman who accepts that you can have platonic relationships with other women. But don't forget the golden rule: keep your pants zipped!

If you find yourself in the situation where the only reason you're friends with a woman is because you think you love her but you know she doesn't feel the same way about you, you owe it to both of you to stop seeing her as much as you currently do. Change your relationship so that while she might still be in your life, she's not the one you're looking to for that hoped-for relationship. Look elsewhere. When you find someone who is actually interested in you romantically, only then can you go back to the first woman and really be her friend. You'll find better friendships this way, and more fulfilling relationships. It starts with being true to yourself.

Of course, there is the possibility that the woman is waiting for you to make the first move, that maybe she can't read the signs either. Love between two people can arise in many ways, including one person declaring their feelings and then the other realising that they feel the same way. The concept of this article isn't about building hope that this happens though, it's instead about building strength and confidence in yourself so that you don't feel the need to latch onto those women who give you their attention.

It's about finding the strength in yourself to do what's best for you. The way you apply your own strength is up to you, but you need to start today.

I want to talk a bit more about my article on Forgiveness. It was written with a certain message, which, I suspect, wasn't that clear. So I want to add this to it, but in a separate post, since this message is more direct. I hope it's more clear as well.

To provide a different perspective to the topic of America vs. terrorism, let's think about it like this. Terrorists are against America because they believe that American foreign policy interferes with their countries and their religion. They are fighting to get America out of their countries. In response to the terrorists' attacks against American interests, America feels forced to retaliate in return, and increase their presence in the countries of those terrorists. This only inflames the terrorists even more, who use this to further their cause and to recruit more people who are drastically affected by America's actions within their countries. The cycle of violence and revenge continues.

Now, politicians are, generally, a reflection of the will of the people. The reason they are elected and empowered to carry out their policies is because, generally, they are carrying out the wishes of the people who voted them in and who continue supporting them. If the politicians decide to retaliate against perceived injustice, it's because they are reflecting the desire to retaliate by the people they are leading. Realistically, if the people didn't want it, the politicians wouldn't do it.

When the World Trade Center (WTC) was attacked and destroyed, the American people wanted revenge. The politicians went along with the will of the people, and Afghanistan and Iraq were attacked and occupied by American forces. And yet, the attack on the WTC was, in itself, revenge by Islamists against previous actions by America within Middle Eastern countries. They wanted America out, which America was refusing to do. Therefore these people considered America as an occupying force, and so they considered themselves to be at war, with the result being the attacks on the USS Cole, the WTC and the Pentagon.

It is the will of the people that the cycle continues, while understanding and forgiveness are alien concepts that are completely ignored and rejected.

Now imagine this scenario.

Imagine that the people of America, generally, decide that forgiveness is the best policy. They choose to forgive the Islamic world for the terrorist attacks against America, and they try and understand the origin of the attacks, and the anger by the Islamists. In their attempts to understand the origins of this anger, the Americans learn that the Islamists are simply defending their interests - just like the Americans are. The Americans, realising that they themselves were the cause of the attacks against them, forgive the Islamists for their actions, understanding completely where they're coming from. They demand from their politicians that they withdraw the military and other disruptive agents from those Islamic countries, and let the Islamists live the lives that they want to live.

The politicians, needing to cater to the wishes of the people in order to stay in power, eventually do just that. America withdraws from interfering in Islamic affairs, and the terrorists no longer have any reason to attack America, since 'they won'.

The prideful desire to win a war will only continue the war until 'victory is achieved'. This has a significant problem when the enemy is only a vague concept of terrorism and terrorists. Terrorists are mostly ordinary people, driven to violence by what they perceive as injustice being done to them, their people and their country. There is no way to win such a war, as the more of these 'terrorists' that are killed, the more it inspires the survivors to avenge the deaths of their loved ones, their families and their friends.

This is their perception. Now imagine their perception when the people of America, and as a result, its politicians, withdraw from the Middle Eastern countries. The Islamists won. They forced America to withdraw, and now the war is over. There is nothing left to fight for. And what's this? Oh my... Americans asking for forgiveness? Americans now saying that they understand what happened was a terrible thing done against them, by horrendous US foreign policy?

The prideful desire to win a war will only cause untold deaths and destruction. Letting go of pride, and taking on forgiveness, can only create a 'win-win solution' to everyone. (Except for the prideful, of course, who find it more important to have their pride satisfied, regardless of how many people die.) The war ends. Death and destruction ends. The way is paved for co-operation, understanding, and forgiveness - from both sides.

Of course, this particular scenario, while it might happen, certainly won't under the current conditions. It would take a social revolution within America to get their attitudes changed from demanding revenge, to demanding peace. There are too many Christian fundamentalists fanning the flames of religious persecution, citing Islam as a threat to the entire world. There are too many people willing to blindly follow what their leaders tell them, without thinking of the consequences of their actions, and without thinking of why things became this way in the first place.

Only when a 'critical mass' of American people begin questioning their religious and their political leaders will these changes begin happening.

Christianity, in the form of the teachings of Jesus, teaches forgiveness. Where is this forgiveness, this desire to 'get along with our fellow man', amongst those Christians today? Jesus was able to forgive those who were directly involved in his death, because they 'know not what they do'. We - you - need to try and forgive, to understand, and to move on with these new attitudes, to end the war and move on with peace.

When you choose to lose, you win.

"Forgive them Father; they know not what they do."
- Jesus Christ, on the cross.

That's a favourite quote of mine, used often by me to explain an important spiritual truth from the bible. I also use it when I talk about how we shouldn't judge others.

How often do we make mistakes? How often do we make errors in judgement? How often do we do something we thought was right, only to learn later on that it was completely and absolutely wrong? How often do we hurt or kill someone else, thinking we are justified in our actions?

If you think that you don't kill someone, you might have to think again, especially in America, which is still one of the few countries in the world to continue executing people. By supporting the death penalty, you are actively killing people. By also supporting war, you are actively killing people. You don't need to be pulling the trigger to be involved in their death.

If you support these things, I forgive you. 'Forgive them Father, they know not what they do.'

You believe you are doing the right thing. You believe the deaths of others is justified.

You don't know the consequences of your actions.

Maybe, somewhere, someone thinks your death is justified. Maybe someone is actively planning to kill you, right now. They're planning this because they think their actions are justified. They think that what they're doing is a good thing, that the world would be better off without you, and that their lives would be much happier as a result.

If you knew without a doubt that someone was trying to kill you, wouldn't you want to know why? Wouldn't you want them not to, so you can continue with your life? You've got so many plans, wouldn't it be a shame to have them all taken away from you right now? Wouldn't you want them to forgive you for any wrongdoings they believe you have done?

In order to receive forgiveness, you must be forgiving. You can't expect someone to 'forgive and forget' anything relating to you, if you're unwilling to do the same to them. You must give to receive the same in return.

If you can ask for forgiveness, you will be forgiven. In order to receive forgiveness for your wrongdoings - perceived or real - you must be forgiving of others.

Can you forgive? Can you be forgiven?

The answers will determine your future.

For those of you who are reading this via your RSS feed subscription, you're probably wondering what thhe hell those 'category' posts are for. Well, you'll have to visit the site to have a look.

I've redesigned the site just a little bit, adding categorisation at the top. Articles, Dating, Favourite Posts, Photo Blog, Politics, Relationships, Self Help, and Spirituality. I've used del.icio.us tagging to facilitate this, with each of those category headings now going to a post that lists all relevent posts.

In a recent post I talked about 'retiring' a number of my other blogs. Before I do that, I plan on bringing the content across to this one, and tag them accordingly. That way, everything I write is now going to be on this blog, and accessible via the Categorisation at the top.

Just another step in the ongoing evolution of this blog.

I found a site this afternoon that I thought was interesting: 'Way of the Mind'. What made it interesting?

This is it.

Politicians here, who sometimes remind me of Atlas Shrugged villains, are probably going to say that the kids are minors according to the law, that they aren’t responsible for their actions, that they are the true victims, that this is all society’s fault, that they can’t possibly be seen, or treated, as criminals, that all children are innocent, that this or that is to blame, and so on. In other words, collectivism, and the denial of that bothersome thing called “personal responsibility”.

That's all someone needs to get my attention and become a 'blog I like'. To talk about how people deny personal responsibility. They show themselves to be aligned with my own way of thinking.

I'll be following their blog. You might want to check 'em out too.

You've probably heard of 'alternate realities'. They're those realities that occur mostly in science fiction, but also in the realms of quantum physics. If you don't know what they are, they're simply realities just like ours, that exist in other dimensions. Or realities completely unlike anything we can imagine. We usuallly can't see them, or detect them, because they're a completely seperate reality to our own, and thus undetectable from within our reality.

When I say 'usually can't see them', I'm alluding to my belief that when you see, feel or hear a ghost, you're sensing something that exists in an alternate reality, a spiritual reality. I think that sometimes, other realities can mix in with our own.

I talked about how "there are as many realities as there are people on earth," according to our individual perceptions. And then there's the alternate realities that we create according to what we want - or told - to believe. Realities, for example, that have the war in Iraq over a couple months after it began (it's still going), where WMDs were found (none were), where Saddam Hussein is incriminated in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people (the only deaths featuring in his trial are 148 who tried rebelling against him after the first Gulf War). And so on.

Alternate realities are not only matters of science fiction, quantum theories, and individual perceptions, they're also realities created by beliefs. Or is that by propaganda?

Propaganda creates a 'reality' that, for those who believe everything they're told, becomes real for them. It forms part of their reality, even though it's an 'alternate reality'. They argue in its favour, they'll even fight to the death to maintain their version of reality.

Even if it's wrong.

It's a shame that so many people can't understand that reality in any form is simply an illusion, shaped entirely by our perceptions and our beliefs. Reality is what we want to believe it is.

What do you believe reality is?

I have a lot of posts on this blog. Including this post, I have 505 posts. If you spent 4 minutes reading each post, it would take you 33.6 hours to read my blog. Let's assume you'd be only reading for 8 hours a day... that's pretty much 4 solid days of reading this blog.

I don't think anyone expects that, with anyone's blog. And I don't think it ever happens that way. To anyone.

But for the first time ever, I've got an 'interested visitor' who's taking the time to read a LOT of posts. They started at 2:50pm yesterday, and stopped at 4pm. That's only just over an hour, but in that time, they went through a lot of my posts. I could tell that they weren't reading ALL of them, but they were browsing a lot. And I just found they started again today at 1:20am and finishing at 5:35am (these times are NZ times).

I'm really pleased that someone has found my posts to be of such interest. I just wanted to say to them: welcome to this site, and thank you for taking the time to read through a lot of the posts on here. I'm very happy you've found something of interest here. :-)

We all ask this question of ourselves, every once in a while. I've told you who I am, and I've even talked a bit about my life. But who am I really?

Wil Wheaton, whose blog I've been following for some years now, talked briefly about it today, in a way that made me laugh and laugh...

...as I reflected on it, I kept thinking about the Road. When I knew what my Road was, I knew where my Road was, and I knew how to get back on it. I wasn't as far off it as I thought, in fact. I just had to turn the wheel and step on the gas. It also helped to drive with my eyes open for a change.

My Road is paved with d20s and TRON DVDs and Atari 2600 games. It's lit by the glow of TNG and BSG episodes and the soundtrack is by Vangelis. It's patrolled by Rover and they sell Soylent Green in the rest stop vending machines. The speed limit is 42, but if you flash your Bavarian Illuminati card, you can use the FTL drive to make it to Milliways in time for dinner.

I'm back on my Road, and nobody can take the sky from me.

It also reminded me of when I was talking about the Road I travelled too.

But the reason I laughed is because Wil is 'just a geek'. Coincidentally, it's the name of a book he wrote. But he's a geek like me. And probably many millions of others. And that makes him more 'real' to me. He's not just a celebrity with a blog. He's a geek with a life, and hobbies, who just happens to be a celebrity as well.

Who am I? I'm a roleplayer, a sci-fi fan, a game player, and a writer. I'm a geek. It's so much fun!

An Afghan who converted to Christianity some 20 years ago has been arrested in Afghanistan and faces execution for leaving behind the Muslim religion he used to be part of. The only defence he has that might save him is pleading insanity. Apparently he 'doesn't speak like normal people', which gives rise to the judges thinking he might be insane.

Maybe he speaks like a Christian... I'm sure, for Muslims, that's grounds for insanity just there. What seems more likely though, is that the US-sponsored government, in the face of global criticism, is trying to find a way out of executing him and yet maintaining their religious laws.

Uncommon Sense has an interesting opinion...

...the imperative is to protect ourselves, America, and indeed, rational and freedom-loving people worldwide from clearly conveyed threats. I mean, that's an imperative, to outweigh all other considerations, no matter how grave. It will be fine with me to let those dirt-scratching primitives deal with one-another as the misogynist, mystical, pre-conceptual organisms they are. I don't know if they are prepared to keep to their primitive ways, and I don't know if the seeds for any sort of eventual Enlightenment have yet been sown.

To execute a man because of his religious beliefs, via the organized power of the state, with the citizenry cheering you on...? And they're breeding and reproducing misogynist, mystical, pre-conscious offspring by the millions...?

Well, those who speak the language and desire Enlightenment for the Muslim world had better get on the ball, because with this wide of a gulf between primitivity and modernity, with some of these regimes getting awfully close to nuclear and/or biological weapons technology, this just might not end well for them; and, as I said: there is the imperative.

I'll leave it at that, the implications being clear.

The imperative, which he implies clearly enough, seems to be kill all those 'dirt-scratching primitives' before they kill Americans.

I can understand this fear causing the belief that everyone who's a 'dirt-scratching primitive' should be exterminated before they cause the deaths of a few Americans.

But then again, I can also understand that these 'primitives', hearing about how so many (Republican - see comments) Americans want to exterminate them, might feel forced to resort to 'pre-emptive defence', which America has already shown is 'fair and legitimate'.

It's attitudes like this which (Republican) America has caused, which is the real reason for the problem in the first place.

• (Republican) Americans: "We have to defend ourselves by killing everyone else, before they can attack us."
• Everyone else: "Hmmm. Obviously we have to defend ourselves first, before they have the chance to defend themselves!"

The flaws behind this (Republican) American logic (is that an oxymoron?) is what's causing the 'terrorist problem' in the first place.

Those who are oppressed will always rise up against their oppressors, to fight for their freedom.

It seems that most (Republican) Americans just don't get it. They don't understand that they are the oppressors, believing their way is the right way, and that they are forcing everyone else to fight for their rights, and their freedoms, which (Conservative) America seems so determined to take away.

This idiocy will only stop when (Republican) Americans become more tolerant of non-Americans, or when they're exterminated themselves, because it seems quite obvious that to them, anyone who's not American, who doesn't have (Republican) American values, is a threat to them.

And that means pretty much the entire world.

Darren at ProBlogger.net talks about recapturing the joys of blogging, having been inspired by another blogger who wrote: "As I’ve lived my life out on the blogosphere for over two years (I started in December 2003), I found it to be something very pleasurable. It started out as a hobby, then morphed its way into a business. Somewhere along the way, blogging ceased to be fun and started to become more like work. When it did, my posting slowed down dramatically…."

He then quotes some tips, which I'll re-quote here as they're very good:

• Blog about what you have a passion for
• Read other blogs
• Take a blogging holiday on occasion
• Set regular times to blog

It got me to thinking about my own experiences with blogging, and my own joys. I've been 'blogging', as such, since 1998. Over 7 years now. SEVEN YEARS. I started as an 'online journaler', back before blogging was called blogging. In fact, I only actually became a 'blogger' mid-2005, but that's only because my 'online journaling' became known as 'blogging'. And because I started using a blogging tool to continue my online journaling.

My passion for the past 7+ years has been writing about my life, and all the personal and not-so-personal experiences within it. Blogging increased my exposure, allowing me to become part of a larger community of bloggers, and has been invaluable for that reason. But along the way, I've always been writing about my life, my passion - and the passions I have within it.

It's true that when you start to forget why you write, and you start to change what you do in order to accommodate either other people or your own altered priorities, then you start getting away from the joys you experience from doing it. When it becomes more of a chore than a pleasure, then it's time to either return to the beginning and start again, or simply to stop what you're doing and go do something different.

With everything in life, if you're not enjoying what you're doing or experiencing, you need to change it so that you do. If you can't change it, you have to get rid of it. Or 'retire it', as Darren calls it in relation to blogs.

I can see myself 'retiring' some of the blogs I've started, but haven't had the passion to continue... but I really doubt that I'll ever be retiring this blog. Seven years of joy tells me that this is going to go on forever. In 2050 I'll still be blogging. Even though the technology will be different, and I'll be 83, I'll still be blogging.

• How long will you be blogging?
• How long will you continue doing what you're passionate about?
• Are you even passionate about it?
• Can you be?
• Can you find the passion, or restore the passion?
• Can you let it go and do something completely different?

These are questions you might need to ask yourself, as you sit there wondering if you should write another post for a blog you don't enjoy.

Earlier this week I removed a post I made last week, because it became clear to me that what the post was about, was absolutely incorrect. It was easier to just remove that post. However, it became clear to me today that what I thought was incorrect was actually partially correct.

The post I removed was about my excitement on being invited to management meetings that I thought I shouldn't have been, and the only conclusion I could allude to was that I was being promoted. However, early this week other people received the same invitations. Therefore, I - along with those others - believed it was just something standard that was being done to everyone.

Nuh uh. It wasn't.

I had my meeting this morning with the exec manager, and while I haven't been promoted to a management position at this stage, although the role is yet to be completely defined, I have been promoted into a new Client Improvement team, doing more of the work that I really like doing, like helping build client and service delivery relationships.

I'm pretty happy about that, even though the transition into the new team isn't going to begin until May-ish.

How do you feel about having believed in a lie all these years? The lie of light bulbs emitting light. In fact, they don't emit light. They suck dark. The proof is all around you.

Take the dark sucker in the room you're in. There's much less dark right next to it than there is elsewhere. The further you get from the dark sucker, the more dark there is! Makes sense really. And the more powerful the dark sucker, the greater its capacity to suck dark.

Dark suckers don't last forever though. Once they're full of dark, they can't suck any more. This is proven by the dark spot that you see on a full dark sucker that just doesn't work any more.

Candles are basic dark suckers. New candles have white wicks, and once they start sucking the dark, the wick begins to turn black. If you put a pencil next to the wick of a burning candle, it'll turn black too. Why? Because it got in the way of the dark flowing into the candle, that's why! This is why you shouldn't get too close yourself, 'cause interfering with the dark sucking can be quite painful.

Dark is also heavier than light. If you were to swim just under the surface of a lak, you would see a lot of light above you. As you sink down, you'll notice it getting darker and darker, and eventually you'll be surrounded by the dark. This is 'cause the dark sinks to the bottom, while the lighter stuff floats to the top.

Now you know why it's called light.

Finally, dark is faster than light. If you were to stand in a lit room in front of a closed, dark closet and slowly opened the door, you would see the light slowly enter the closet. But since dark is so fast you won't be able to see the dark leave the closet. Dark is faster than light.

Next time you see an electric bulb or a candle, remember that it's sucking dark. If anyone tells you any differently, they're wrong.

Thanks to: The dark sucker theory.

Deidre and I looked after a friend's kitten on the weekend, while they went away. The experience left us wanting another kitten ourselves. We're looking at some kittens tomorrow after work.

I'll let you know if we get one... :-)

I don't usually watch Boston Legal, but occasionally I've caught glimpses of it when Deidre's channel surfing has paused on it for a while. I've always been impressed with the court room dramatics of the main actor, with what little I've seen of it. Today I heard about the latest episode, called 'Stick It', having a very interesting closing speech in it. A closing speech that a lot of Americans should be interested in as well. A closing speech that could get the show shut down by the US Government as being 'anti-American', but that's entirely what the speech is about.

For your reading and viewing pleasure, I bring you the link to the video of the closing speech, and the transcript of what was said, in case you can't download the video.

Enjoy, you subversives, enjoy!

Alan Shore's closing argument

Alan Shore: When the weapons of mass destruction thing turned out to be not true, I expected the American people to rise up. Ha! They didn't.

Then, when the Abu Ghraib torture thing surfaced and it was revealed that our government participated in rendition, a practice where we kidnap people and turn them over to regimes who specialize in torture, I was sure then the American people would be heard from. We stood mute.

Then came the news that we jailed thousands of so-called terrorists suspects, locked them up without the right to a trial or even the right to confront their accusers. Certainly, we would never stand for that. We did.

And now, it's been discovered the executive branch has been conducting massive, illegal, domestic surveillance on its own citizens. You and me. And I at least consoled myself that finally, finally the American people will have had enough. Evidentially, we haven't.

In fact, if the people of this country have spoken, the message is we're okay with it all. Torture, warrantless search and seizure, illegal wiretappings, prison without a fair trial - or any trial, war on false pretenses. We, as a citizenry, are apparently not offended.

There are no demonstrations on college campuses. In fact, there's no clear indication that young people seem to notice.

Well, Melissa Hughes noticed. Now, you might think, instead of withholding her taxes, she could have protested the old fashioned way. Made a placard and demonstrated at a Presidential or Vice-Presidential appearance, but we've lost the right to that as well. The Secret Service can now declare free speech zones to contain, control and, in effect, criminalize protest.

Stop for a second and try to fathom that.

At a presidential rally, parade or appearance, if you have on a supportive t-shirt, you can be there. If you are wearing or carrying something in protest, you can be removed.

This, in the United States of America. This in the United States of America. Is Melissa Hughes the only one embarrassed?

*Alan sits down abruptly in the witness chair next to the judge*

Judge Robert Sanders: Mr. Shore. That's a chair for witnesses only.

Alan: Really long speeches make me so tired sometimes.

Judge Sanders: Please get out of the chair.

Alan: Actually, I'm sick and tired.

Judge Sanders: Get out of the chair!

Alan: And what I'm most sick and tired of is how every time somebody disagrees with how the government is running things, he or she is labeled unAmerican.

U.S. Attorney Jonathan Shapiro: Evidentally, it's speech time.

Alan: And speech in this country is free, you hack! Free for me, free for you. Free for Melissa Hughes to stand up to her government and say "Stick it"!

U.S. Attorney Jonathan Shapiro: Objection!

Alan: I object to government abusing its power to squash the constitutional freedoms of its citizenry. And, God forbid, anybody challenge it. They're smeared as being a heretic. Melissa Hughes is an American. Melissa Hughes is an American. Melissa Hughes is an American!

Judge Sanders: Mr. Shore. Unless you have anything new and fresh to say, please sit down. You've breached the decorum of my courtroom with all this hooting.

Alan: Last night, I went to bed with a book. Not as much fun as a 29 year old, but the book contained a speech by Adlai Stevenson. The year was 1952. He said, "The tragedy of our day is the climate of fear in which we live and fear breeds repression. Too often, sinister threats to the Bill of Rights, to freedom of the mind are concealed under the patriotic cloak of anti-Communism."

Today, it's the cloak of anti-terrorism. Stevenson also remarked, "It's far easier to fight for principles than to live up to them."

I know we are all afraid, but the Bill of Rights - we have to live up to that. We simply must. That's all Melissa Hughes was trying to say. She was speaking for you. I would ask you now to go back to that room and speak for her.

Well, I finally got around to seeing it. And loved it! As usual... Deidre was annoyed because I can't immediately download the next episode... "Sorry, I'll do that in 6 months, when it starts again." Downloading only works when there are episodes to download...!

Anyway, it was good, it was awesome, but... it wasn't as good an episode as the season 1 finale. It raised some questions though.

If you don't want to read any more, then don't! Save yourself the horrors of learning about it if 1) you're just not interested, or 2) you're yet to watch it and don't want to spoil the surprises.

Now that we've gotten over those minor spoiler alerts, let's continue.

What I want to know is...

1) What happened between Starbuck and Apollo over the previous 'year', that left them not talking? Do you think it was her marriage to "I'm so tough I can play football while I have pneumonia"?

2) What happened between Starbuck and Colonel Tigh to make them into such close friends, when they'd always been at each other's throats?

3) Why was there no apparent investigation into how Baltar's nuclear weapon was smuggled out of his science lab? Was there no security on a nuclear bomb??

4) If there's only just over 39,000 people on New Caprica, and yet there's still half the crews onboard the Battlestars, how many people are there normally onboard a Battlestar? How many people died in the nuclear blast that destroyed at least 3 or 4 fully laden ships?

5) If there's so many people down on New Caprica, and have been for a year, why are there still people and crews onboard all the ships in the fleet, in order for them to jump away when the Cylons came?

6) Who is Admiral Adama's XO now that Tigh's on New Caprica?

7) What kind of lunacy would have Adama think that they wouldn't need an operational fleet only a year after the Cylons broke off conflict? Has everyone lost their minds?

8) What happened to the two Cylons who were 'priests', after they announced the change of plans? Were they thrown out of the airlock?

9) How did that Cylon know where Starbuck's husband was, in order to ask him where she was, if they only ust arrived?

10) Where did the fleet jump to?

11) If it took them so long to get to action stations, and then to prep for a jump, why couldn't all military personnel have been recalled from the surface? Who's been responsible for such idiotic contingency planning? (Or lack thereof.)

I'm sure there's a few more questions that could be asked. Please ask them in the Comments. And if you think you have some answers to the above questions, please answer them! :-)

I'll be looking forward with great eagerness to having these questions explained in the show, when it returns...

...governments should be afraid of their people.

That's a quote from "V for Vendetta", a movie that has already opened everywhere except for New Zealand. Grrr. It apparently starts here at the end of this month

I saw a poster of it earlier this week near the cinema, and saw 'from the makers of The Matrix' and knew I had to go see it just for that. I checked out the trailers and found out some more information, and knew it was 'my kind of movie'.

And then my friend Emelie today writes a post where she says: "Alan, you should REALLY go see it, it's straight up your alley. You know, in a good way."

So what's it about? Why am I interested? Why are my friends telling me I need to go see it? I quote:

A shadowy freedom fighter known only as "V" uses terrorist tactics to fight against his totalitarian society. Upon rescuing a girl from the secret police, he also finds his best chance at having an ally.

That's why I'm interested. Right up my alley indeed. :-)

I'll try to download it, and if I can't, I'll wait until it comes out at the cinema here in a couple of weeks.

I know there's a lot of nice people in America. Unfortunately, we don't get to hear about many of them. They seemed to be outnumbered by the American idiots.

Ex-employee faces suit over file deletion - A man was sued by the company he used to work for, because he deleted documents during the course of his employment, and when the company was unable to get those specific documents back upon request, they had him charged under anti-hacking laws for 'destruction of data' and took him to court. Now, it seems completely obvious they were just trying to frack him over, just because they could. Who takes someone to court for deleting documents during the course of their work? Unbelievable. It gets worse though. The judges found him guilty under the anti-hacking laws, and disregarded his defence that the deleting of documents was valid during the course of his work. It was the judge's beliefs that the company had the right to ownership of all material - including deleted material - and if the man couldn't provide it to them, then he was committing a crime.

This has now set a precedent that deleting documents from your work computer could very well be illegal, and turn you into a hacker who destroys data.

Almost every day I hear something idiotic that an American - or group of Americans - do. Now it's obvious that American lawmakers are idiots too.

I found a website during my travels yesterday that was written by a fat woman. I could tell because she said she was 'fat'... anyway, she was talking about how she went to the supermarket to buy some food, and was browsing through all the fattening foods. Suddenly one of the supermarket attendants came over and stood next to her, talking about all the nutritional foods that were there, and offering information about nutritional values of the various foods. She told him to piss off, that she wasn't interested in knowing about nutrition. He shrugged, and walked away.

She then spent the rest of her post ranting and raving about this man, and how evil and fracked up (my words) he was for daring to talk about nutritional values. She believed he was calling her fat, you see, and so he became the worst person in the world. In fact, he was so bad, that she spent a great deal of time expressing her absolute hatred and loathing of this individual, with 'evil' featuring heavily, along with 'die', and a few other choice words.

The amount of hatred in this post just made me close it and move on to somewhere else. It seemed to be to be the average reaction of a very large woman who hated herself so much, that her hatred was expressed to anyone or anything that pointed out to her how fat she was, and how much she hated it.

I felt it was very sad, but it wasn't something I needed to read. I wonder how many others found her blog, and were appalled by the hatred she had for someone who was only trying to help and left it as quickly as they could...

by George Clooney.

I am a liberal. And I make no apologies for it. Hell, I'm proud of it.

Too many people run away from the label. They whisper it like you'd whisper "I'm a Nazi." Like it's dirty word. But turn away from saying "I'm a liberal" and it's like you're turning away from saying that blacks should be allowed to sit in the front of the bus, that women should be able to vote and get paid the same as a man, that McCarthy was wrong, that Vietnam was a mistake. And that Saddam Hussein had no ties to al-Qaeda and had nothing to do with 9/11.

This is an incredibly polarized time (wonder how that happened?). But I find that, more and more, people are trying to find things we can agree on. And, for me, one of the things we absolutely need to agree on is the idea that we're all allowed to question authority. We have to agree that it's not unpatriotic to hold our leaders accountable and to speak out.

That's one of the things that drew me to making a film about Murrow. When you hear Murrow say, "We mustn't confuse dissent with disloyalty" and "We can't defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home," it's like he's commenting on today's headlines.

The fear of been criticized can be paralyzing. Just look at the way so many Democrats caved in the run up to the war. In 2003, a lot of us were saying, where is the link between Saddam and bin Laden? What does Iraq have to do with 9/11? We knew it was bullshit. Which is why it drives me crazy to hear all these Democrats saying, "We were misled." It makes me want to shout, "Fuck you, you weren't misled. You were afraid of being called unpatriotic."

Bottom line: it's not merely our right to question our government, it's our duty. Whatever the consequences. We can't demand freedom of speech then turn around and say, But please don't say bad things about us. You gotta be a grown up and take your hits.

I am a liberal. Fire away.

Me too.

I've known a couple of people in my lifetime who have mental disorders, like borderline personality disorder and bipolar disorder. Both of them had their disorders controlled to some extent by drugs. When they go off the drugs, chemical imbalances in their brains cause them to experience depression and negative and destructive thought patterns. These thought patterns are controlled by the drugs, apparently bringing a chemical balance back to the brain.

What I've been thinking about today is this.

If negative and destructive thought patterns are controlled by drugs returning a chemical balance to the brain, that means that the thoughts themselves are controlled or influenced by chemicals. This means that balanced or positive thoughts are influenced or controlled by a balanced chemical makeup in the brain.

So where does 'free will' come into this if thoughts are determined by the chemicals in the brain?

What does this mean for 'free will' if our thought patterns are actually affected or controlled by the chemicals in our brains? It sounds to me that free will doesn't actually exist, and is instead an illusion that is created by the interaction of various chemicals and electrical impulses that result in what we call thoughts.

Anyone have any thoughts on this? Or chemical interactions pretending to be thoughts? :-)

But she always gets the damn time wrong!

It's really weird, but it doesn't matter what time the alarm is set for, my cat (Eve) will always wake us up about 10 minutes before the alarm goes off. It doesn't matter if it's set for 6am or 6:30am or even 8am. She will always start scratching at the mat - her signal to be fed - ten minutes before the alarm is due to go off.

It sucks! The last thing you want to do is wake up BEFORE the alarm, but if you try to ignore her, she just keeps on scratching. If you succeed in ignoring her - even though it's keeping you awake - she will then jump up on the bed and stand on the pillow, above your head, looking at you until you get up in disgust. And then she jumps off the bed and runs gleefully into the kitchen, waiting for you to come in and provide her food.

Once you give her the food, you can then go back to bed, uninterrupted... for about 5 minutes. And then she'll start scratching again to be let outside.

So when she wakes us up before the alarm, there's just no going back to sleep. Bloody annoying.

Why the hell does she do that? HOW does she do it?

Racism is alive and well in the UK

UK kindergartens bleat about nursery rhyme

Kindergartens in Britain have sparked controversy by changing the lyrics of a traditional nursery rhyme.

Instead of "Baa Baa Black Sheep", toddlers at the kindergartens in Oxfordshire chant "Baa Baa Rainbow Sheep."

Supporters argue the original words alienate and offend young black children.

Parents of the children are understood to be unhappy about the move.

Why racist, you ask? Because this issue is based on race, therefore it's racist.

I think it's frackin' stupid for these retards in the kindergartens to impose these kinds of changes. To protect the children from their blackness, so they're not offended?

Fracking hell, why don't we just go out and wipe out all the black sheep, so that black kids aren't offended by black sheep. Maybe we should put a rainbow coloured roof around the earth, so that we can't see the blackness of the night sky, in case that offends them. Maybe we should eliminate black panthers, black monkeys, black cows... Hell, maybe we should just eliminate the colour black!

Hey, if I'm writing in black type on a white page, would that offend black people?

This is such a huge case of fracked up political correctness, I can't believe it's actually being acted upon.

However, what I really want to know is, where are the rainbow sheep?

You can do physical exercises to boost your fitness, but did you know that you can also do mental exercises to boost your intelligence? You can!

Thanks to this article here, here are the things you can do each day for a week to boost your intelligence by 40%.

Saturday
Brush your teeth with your 'wrong' hand, and take a shower with your eyes closed.

Sunday
Do the crossword or Sudoku puzzle in the paper, and take a brisk walk.

Monday
Have oily fish for dinner, and either cycle, walk or take the bus into work.

Tuesday
Select unfamiliar words from the dictionary and work them into your conversations.

Wednesday
Go to yoga, Pilates or a meditation class, and talk to someone you don't know.

Thursday
Take a different route to work. Watch a brain teasing program on tv.

Friday
Avoid caffeine or alcohol. Memorise your shopping list.

Enjoy becoming smarter!

More of my prediction is continuing to come true in the time period I estimated. I love it!

...within the next 12 months, we are going to see the introduction of a global network-based operating system (OS) that will allow the provision of all services - and more - that you are currently used to. Storage space, applications, games, multimedia and the internet will all be available via this single OS.

It's been released that Google will soon be releasing their GDrive, which will allow for infinite storage of all user files:

"With infinite storage, we can house all user files, including: emails, web history, pictures, bookmarks, etc and make it accessible from anywhere (any device, any platform, etc). We already have efforts in this direction in terms of GDrive, GDS, Lighthouse, but all of them face bandwidth and storage constraints today."

This is exciting news.

Again, the biggest issue will, of course, be from those extreme proponents of privacy who don't trust their information residing on an external server. However, I don't see the difference between storing your private data on your computer, or sending it to other people via email - which most people do!

That email is stored on a mail server, even if it's downloaded to yours or someone else's computer. There's no difference between storing it as email, or storing it on a storage drive. They're still being stored somewhere.

And don't get me started on your bank details and credit card numbers and passwords being stored on bank servers...

Moving forward into the future is about increasing the accessibility of our data from any computer, at any location.

I've finished the second day on the 'Make a Service Desk' project. Yes, that's exactly what it is. I'm still a 'service desk advisor', but instead of advising them on developing procedures, I'm actually advising them on how to set up a 1st tier Service Desk - from scratch. I'm not advising them on how good or bad their procedures are, I'm creating new procedures for them. And a service desk. And everything.

Hol.Eee.Shite.

How huge is that? Way huge.

So yesterday afternoon, I found out that they had nothing developed. Not a single thing. And only less than 2 months from going live. I went back to my normal place of work and got some information on how we organise the process. I'll be using that to help me create the procedures they'll need.

I also really felt like an 'advisor' this afternoon, when I sat down with a few people and told them that in order for me to do 'this', they have to do 'that', and they'll need to do it before I can continue. So there was a period of mild embarrassment amongst them that they hadn't already done 'that', which was an essential element to defining how their service desk is going to work, and so they got to it straight away.

And while they did that, I went home.

I'm in this fantastic position of real influence, on having my efforts at helping this company - a big company, let me remind you - deliver their promised service agreement, within a very short time frame. If I can pull this out of my arse and get them the results they need, within the time they need it, that'll be some serious browie points in my favour.

The experience I'll get with this is invaluable. Needless to say, I'm a pretty happy chappy. :-)

I received my new phone / PDA from work yesterday. It's a UTStarcom PPC-6700 / XV-6700 / HTC Apache (depending on your location around the world). In NZ it's the Apache HTC.

As you can see it has a slide-out keyboard on it. It also has the following connection capabilities: USB, IR, Bluetooth, Wifi and CDMA. Not to mention the other PDA stuff.

I like it. :-)

Have you ever walked alone in the dark, feeling like there's some thing out there in the darkness... You feel afraid, with the hairs all over your body standing on end, but you don't know why. You walk on, looking around; you see nothing, hear nothing, and you hope nothing is there. Your senses are on edge, everything straining to see or hear whatever it is that might be there.

But there's nothing.

When you finally get to where you're going, you find it difficult to walk. You feel like giving way to the mad panic lurking just beneath the surface of your self control, demanding that you run for the door, for safety. Fighting back the fear, you make your way indoors, thankful to be out of the darkness. You shut the door behind you and hope that nothing bangs against it.

You sigh with relief as nothing does.

Have you ever seen something move out of the corner of your eye - a flash and it's gone - but when you look around there was nothing there? Did you imagine it? Or maybe... maybe you saw the flash of something that only exists on the edge of your perception.

What is it that flashes past the edge of your vision, a glimpse of something that's not really there?

What follows you as you walk the darkness? What is it that is out there, where you can't see it but you know it's there?

What is it?

Have you felt it? Do you know what it is?

Last night I dreamt that my cat, Eve, was actually a mouse. As a mouse, she was attacked by a rat. She managed to defend herself, but was injured. I went to get something to help make her more comfortable, to look after her. When I returned, I discovered that she'd been attacked by another rat! She still managed to defend herself, and was still alive, with a dead rat on either side of her. However, she was badly injured and dying.

I laid down next to her and tried to comfort her, as she couldn't move. Her breathing was heavy, and even though she was a mouse, it was obvious she was pain. I laid down next to her and tried comforting her, holding her and patting her, while speaking to her, pleading with her not to die, that she was going to be ok, and that I loved her. I was crying in the dream while doing this, knowing she was dying on me. And then she stopped breathing, and I started crying, deep in sorrow.

I woke up at this point, still feeling the deep sorrow - as one does when waking from it. I laid there, thinking about the dream, and about how tough Eve The Mouse was to fight off and kill two rats. I wondered what it meant, but then drifted back off to sleep.

I remembered it again tonight, and got out my dream book to try and work out the meaning.

First, the mouse meant 'a feeling of insignificance, of fear'. Second, the rat meant 'judging yourself through others'. Third, the cat (eg. Eve) is my 'intuitive self, the feminine part of myself'. Fourth, two means 'needing people, self-surrender, putting others before yourself'. Fifth, death means 'the death of old patterns and programs, and the making way for rebirth'.

From these dream symbols I realised the following:

The feminine part of myself (Eve) was represented as feeling insignificant (mouse). However, my feelings of insignificance found the strength to fight the judgements of others and myself (the rat). Not only did I fight them off and kill them, thus killing off the old patterns of judgements, I fought off two rats, which represented the fact that I also fought off the need for people, self-surrender and for putting others before myself.

What I found extemely interesting was that only yesterday I wrote more about my struggle against being judgemental, about judging others, which is only judging myself. So as I'm becoming more aware of that aspect of myself yesterday, I then have a dream that points out to me that spiritually and subconsciously I'm fighting and succeeding against being judgemental.


UPDATE: I forgot to add that the death of the mouse (Eve) meant that the feelings of insignificance was killed, by having killed off the self-judgement.

I'll just have to see how this interpretation translates over into real-world attitudes.

I've found out a few more details on Thursday about what my 'role' is, which I talked about here. Three days a week will be spent at a new location, and I'll be sort of a 'Service Desk Advisor'. My role will be to advise this other company on how to develop their own service desk procedures for a new major client. As they create their procedures, I'll be in the background providing advice on good or bad aspects, how to do things better, etc. Basically to bring in 'real world' knowledge to their development. None of their developers have service desk experience, so that's why I'm going to be advising them.

I think it's awesome that I was chosen for this role. It's also awesome that my involvement will require me to be trained up in some new software applications, as well as in ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library - 'the best processes of managing IT services'). The experience, and the training, are going to be great as I move forward in IT.

I'll be starting Monday, working there from Mon - Wed each week for the next month or two, and working Thu - Fri back at my normal place of work. The other company was going to get me to work on someone else's laptop, but I requested that they enable my current laptop on their network, so that I have convenience for working between locations. They approved it. Sweet. :-)

I came upon this blog (Paulies Place) that had a post about a recent law passed in the US. I'd heard of this law, but Paulie put it in such a way that I understood it even more. It's now a crime to annoy anyone on the internet, only if you're doing it anonymously. It's ok to annoy people if you put your own name to it.

I agree with what Paullie said:

...proves once again that lawmakers are no more intelligent then the people who pack your groceries. Seriously, how are they going to define annoyance? I mean, I'm annoyed on the daily just by surfing Blog Explosion. Hell, I probably annoy the shit out of some of you bitches too! Am I committing a crime now? What a steaming pile of horseshit this law represents! You probably already guessed that you have a Republican't to thank for this. Say thank you! Idiots.

As for my own thoughts, I'm curious how this affects people outside of the US who anonymously annoy people inside the US. How is that controlled? Anyone want to help me out with some information on that?

Rare are those of you who live your life for a future. There are not enough of you. The majority of you squander your time in inane pursuits that have no meaning. You have no concept of human co-operation, of working together as a species to achieve your future, your destiny. Your future has no meaning to you, because you base no importance on your present day lives. How can you achieve the bright future you hope for when you do nothing for it today?

I came to your world to analyse your readiness to join the Enlightened, and yet what I found was disappointing. I studied your history, and I found that a greater sense of enlightenment existed amongst you thousands of years ago, but not any more. Your desire for individuality has taken you away from understanding your connection with each other, and brought you to a spiritual standstill.

You feel superior because of your technological advancements, and yet your society is splintered - racially, politically, socially, and spiritually. There is no cohesiveness amongst you, no recognition of the connection each of you have with each other. 'Enlightened' is not a word that could be used to describe you.

And for that reason, you are earmarked for destruction. You have gone backwards over the past few thousand of your years, and there seems to be no hope that you will remember the connection you have to all that is.

However, it is not the Enlightened, or I, who will be the means of your destruction. It is yourselves who have earmarked your own destruction. In your unenlightened attempts to achieve your individuality, you aim for the destruction of others of your kind, mistakenly believing that individual freedom can only come at the expense of others. The more you advance technologically, the more focused you become on creating more advanced means of destroying each other.

I sit here and watch you as you do nothing with your lives. You know, subconsciously, that there's no point to your life. You know, somehow, that you have no future. And so you sit there, waiting to die.

It's because you wait for death that death will arrive. Instead of seeking out life, instead of seeking out a bright and positive future, you do nothing. You watch inane television, and engage in work you don't like, avoiding your responsibilities - to yourself, your future, and the future of humanity.

You have no understanding of co-operation, of working together to achieve enlightenment, of achieving unity with all that is. And so by doing your utmost to be separate from each other and from all that is, you will achieve it. Your destruction is all that is on your mind, and that is all you see. And so you will achieve it.

I sit here, silently watching, hoping that you will change; hoping that someone, somewhere, will start changing their beliefs and begin dragging the rest of your race with them. I sit here hoping that you will become members of the Enlightened, before you destroy yourselves.

I see solutions that you avoid. I see that most of you are lazy, afraid to get off your backsides and do something to achieve change in your world. I see that with most of you avoiding your responsibilities, you place your destiny in the hands of others.

You need to take your lives into your own hands. You need to take ownership of your own destiny. You need to co-operate with others of your kind to create social change, to move forward in a more positive direction. You need to start action groups, protest groups. You need to hold in your minds the future that you want, and doing that will help you move forward with direction.

Your future is in your hands, it really is. I can leave this world at any time, but you can't. This world is your home, all of it. This is all you have. There's nothing else. Not yet. And not ever if you avoid enlightenment.

I write this as a warning, hoping some of you will decide to watch less TV and do more for yourselves and those around you. I hope that you can achieve positive change, because no one else will do it for you.

I shall continue watching. Maybe one day I will contact some of you, and welcome you into the Enlightened. Or maybe I will just leave. That is up to you.

Our planned trip to Lake Wairarapa didn't happen, due to a severe storm warning and gale force winds.

I find it bizarre that the very first major storm for the year happens on the very day that we want to go camping. Go figure.

In most instances, people that stumble on your site from a search engine will see only what appears on their screen. This will be your most recent blog entry. They're not likely to scroll down and see what else is there, nor are they likely to browse your archives. If they don't see what they're looking for in the first couple of seconds, or if they're not 'pulled in' by what you've written, then they're outta there.

This means that in order to retain visitors to your site, you have to make every post a quality post. You have to make your 'last post' the best post of your blog. Until the next one, that is.

I've started using BlogExplosion recently (which is how I stumbled upon Human Advancement), and it's given me a better understanding of how this kind of thing works. As I'm forced to view blogs for 30 seconds, what I find is that IF the very first entry is crap I just sit there and wait for the countdown to be reached and then go to the next blog.

It's more preferable than sitting there and scrolling down to read more of the crap that's sitting there at the top. Finding crap often leads you to more crap if you follow it, but if you sit there and read nothing, you avoid the crap...

But it's given me more of an appreciation for making each of my posts good posts.

You might want to consider BlogExplosion yourself, to get a better idea of this. At the same time, as you browse other people's blogs, other people are forced to browse YOUR blog, so it's a good way of getting traffic to your site. (Thanks Liz :-)

I found this blog called Human Advancement, and frankly, I was quite impressed with the content of it. Impressed enough to immediately add it to my blogroll under 'Blogs I like'. I encourage you to have a read as well.

I liked what he was talking about regarding humanity's advancement and the essential elements of what moves us forward, paraphrased here:

Life
Life gives us the opportunity to exist and to move forward. It's about making advances that help us move forward better.

Intelligence
Intelligence is not just about the individual but about the species. It's about sharing knowledge and ideas with each other, and understanding the connection between the past and the future.

Technology
Technology is the application of intelligence towards fulfilling our needs.

Freedom
Freedom is the concept that inspires people to do the job. Individual freedom, and the freedom of humanity.

These four touchstones are what his blog is about, and is also what he believes the future of humanity needs in order to advance. I agree with him absolutely.

I'll be following his posts, and reading his past posts, and I can see myself being inspired to change my own style of writing. His writing style and content is, in many ways, how I have wanted to develop my own.

I was talking to mli last night about the Holocaust, and how I write things. During the conversation I realised that I don't actually write with a spiritual outlook. I look at what's wrong, but I don't look at how to make it right. I'm judgemental.

But then, I already knew that. I wrote about it in January, saying:

The style of writing I've been doing for the past few years has been highly judgemental about others. I thought that I was being 'controversial', and 'exercising my opinion', and that if people had a problem with what I wrote then it was a reflection of themselves, and not me.

But it's been saying something about me as well. It's been pointing out to me how judgemental I am.

I really don't like forgetting 'lessons' that I learn, but I guess part of the change process is slipping back into the old ways. The more you remember that you want to change though, the more you actually will change.

New habits take time to form, and while it might not happen overnight, it will happen.

If you're like most people, you're taught by your parents and society to avoid being selfish, to give of what you have to others. The main reason is to be of assistance to others, to help them when they're down or in need.

But apart from giving because you're told to, or because you're expected to, why else would you give?

Because it makes you feel good.

Being of assistance to someone else makes you feel worthwhile, useful, and needed. It gives you a warm feeling deep down, which can inspire you to do even more for others. So even in the throes of giving, we're being selfish.

Interesting, isn't it. We're being of assistance to others simply because of our own selfishness.

Now, a lot of people would recoil in horror at this thought. "Hell no, I'm not selfish!" they'd cry. No one wants to be thought of as selfish, because of the negative connotations that come with it. The don't want to be labelled as selfish because that would make them feel bad, and make them look bad in the eyes of others.

The desire not to be labelled as selfish is still a selfish desire.

It's all about 'me-me-me'. You can't escape it.

So why not embrace it?

Stop beating yourself up about being selfish, and accept it as how things are. Understand that you do things because it somehow benefits you, and so there's no need to be ashamed of your 'selfish thoughts or actions'. It's GOOD that you're selfish, it's how things are.

If you did everything (or some things) simply to benefit others, then you wouldn't try to consider any benefit to yourself. You would be putting yourself out for others, with no reward. Your efforts at being selfless might also be detrimental to your health or your life.

If someone is drowning in a river because they can't swim, the selfless act would be to jump in and save them. But what about if you can't swim, and no one else is around? To be selfless would be to jump in and TRY to rescue them. And so you die too.

Selfish people survive, because they will only give to others if it is not going to end up with them being killed as a result. What's the point in helping someone if it's only going to result in your own death?

Of course, love changes the rules on selflessness, but that's an entirely different story which we don't need to cover here.

Positive selfishness is where you do something for someone else that benefits you, while negative selfishness is where you do something for yourself that takes something away from others.

Don't be negatively selfish, as that only leads to an imbalance which has to be addressed. The universe will always try to create balance, and if you fail to create balance for yourself and others, then the universe will do it for you.

If you spend your time taking from others in order to benefit yourself at their expense, then the universe is going to end up arranging events to take back from you in some fashion. This is the natural order of things. Some people call this 'karma'.

Balance is where you find benefit for yourself as you do things for others. A win-win situation has to be present in all things, so look for what you can get for yourself as you do things for others, even if it's simply to feel good about yourself.