It's not unusual for athiests to be able to pinpoint the exact day or time that they lost their faith in God. For most it's just gradual, something that happens as you get older. For some, a profoundly disturbing event may shake the core of their belief and forever sever their ties to religion. But for me, it was a mixture of boredom and frustration.

It's the early nineties, and yours truly is just a sweet little child attending Primary School (or Elementary School, if you're of American persuasion). I'm in a church.The school told us we have to attend this - and in our own free time - but I don't mind; I still believe in God at this point, so if he wants me to give up an hour or two of playtime then I'm certainly not going to disagree with the master of all creation. We get a lecture about the upcoming ceremony in which we're about to take part; Christingle.

Our role is to sit at the front of the audience for a bit of Mass. At the end of the priest's sermon, we have to walk up to the front of the church holding an orange. The orange is tied with a red ribbon, and has a candle jammed into the top of it. We're told to go to the front of the church, the candle is lit, and we take our seats for another sermon. We're told that it roughly symbolises Christianity; the orange is the world, the red ribbon is Jesus's love, and the flaming candle represents our burning faith.

The ceremony is three hours long. We are not told this. We sit there for three hours holding an orange, listening to a Priest mumble inaudible prayers, wondering when it's going to end. I can't even daydream- a favourite of mine, even at such an early age- because the lighted candle would probably set me alight. I blow it out, andoffer a quick whisper ofapology to The Lord. A teacher sees me. After he gives me a harsh, whispered telling off,he re-lights the candle.

Unable to drift off, my mind focuses on what I'm doing. I'm sitting in a cold room. On a hard chair. Listening to a man I can't hear. Holding an orange. With a candle jammed in it. For three hours.

I distinctly remember thinking: why? Why would God possibly want me to sit here holding a ****ing orange? The only answer I could come up with is this: he doesn't. As the night dragged on, I began picking apart everything I knew of Christianity; the drab hymns, the bible stories filled with magic, the silly robes, buildings dedicated to an omnipresent being....

The candle was supposed to represent our burning faith. It did. At the end of the ceremony, I blew mine out and threw it in the trash.

----------------------------

And, because that was a bit heavy, an unusual tale of the Microsoft Paperclip. I was writing my novel, as I'm wont to do, when suddenly the Paperclip pops up.

"It seems as if you're trying to tack on a subplot aboutmaking love tollamas. Would you like Microsoft Help to advise the best way to do that?"

I was bemused. My novel was a serious drama,a tale about the fragility of man's soul in a world devoid of joy, set against the backdrop of 1890's New York. After a quick read-through of what I'd written, it suddenly became clear; my lead character was a llama fettishist. I didn't even intend it that way, yet somehow Greg Llamalova had acquired this whole bizarre llama-loving persona. I have often heard writers say that some characters 'just took control', but I never knew it was true.

I need to stop doing my writing at 2 in the morning. Seriously.

Yeah, yeah I know

I've been going after this sucker for ages now and finally an egg hatched and blamo!!! I now have a Proto Drake

Link to WoWhead for those interested in the stats for getting this baby. Very cool stuff.

HTML errors all down to class

These are approximately a week old, maybe a little less.

EDIT: after several attempts to put the pictures into this entry, i'll just direct link them. sheesh.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v215/ncoleman77/Isabel/DSC02619.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v215/ncoleman77/Isabel/DSC02613.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v215/ncoleman77/Isabel/DSC02611.jpg

That's right, the new super smash brothers brawl for the nintendo wii has a level creator, That already means hours of fun just making the level and then days worth of fun throwing you'r friends off the edge of you'r new stage.

This game keeps getting better and better every month and is one I'm getting as soon as it's released.

Since Good Friday and Easter Monday are both public holidays here, I can finally catch up on some RPGs that I have been neglecting.
Dragon Quest 8 and Valkyrie Profile, HERE I COME!! Of course I'll have to through in some time at church, restaurant hopping fun and maybe even a little beach time into the mix, but what a mix it is!! WOOHOO!!

Does any one have the same problem with Managers at work.

Ive been working at a fast food restuanrane for five years, and have worked only at weekends (part time), every now and then i probley work 1 or 2 days in the week, kinda if they need some body in.

But this last year, a female restaurant manager came in and starts changing everything, new rules, new ways in working, reducing staff so its more pressure on a individual for only £4.85 an hour, and we are running around doing everything.

We have had 6 resturants managers  in the last five years, but they always have a kind heart, all ways treating people with respect and allowing us to have abit of fun, as long as customers still get their food.

Myself is a very hard working person, very friendly and like to have a laugh and help out others that need help. Very good at team working skills. Always on time are even really early, example: a good 15 to 20 minutes early sometimes.

Now we have this NEW female manager, shes so mardy, shouts at everyone, makes everyone stressed, makes the whole enviroment horrible to work in, and then we all moan at each other all beacuse of her.

One firday, recently, apprently i was meant to be working, i honestly did not know anything about this.

I turned up on Saturday like normaly, on the open, she arrives 15 minuites late and then rushes parts me and then gives me an evil face through out the whole morning and still at this time, i did not know what was wrong.

Normaly i dont have to check the roater beacuse i only work Saturday 8am till 4pm, and Sunday 9am till 2pm.

She didnt phone me or even warn me to say i should have came in. So really it wasnt my fault.

Now at the end of Saturday, she really shouted at me and made me feel small, i dont have to put up with people like her, she does this to everyone, makes everyone feel like crap, and its not clever and its not nice and it shows shes not a good resturtant manager if she cant cope.

The area manager wont even listen to you, so theres no point in trying to speak to him.

So now I QUIT.......

Time to move on, and shes expecting me to work this friday and weekend, but im not going to do her any more favours after the way she treated me last weekend.

And its my Birthday this Friday

She want me to work my birthday, normaly i might think about it, but working with her and all shes going to do is shout at me and treat me like scum, well im not going to waste my energy no more with her.

So she can look else where.

Thing is, we had a total of 25 staff, because of her, its gone down to 8 people. Will be 7 when i go, which is now, because im not going back.

ANY WAY, DOES THIS SOUND FAMILAR WHERE YOU WORK????

I wish that was true, I hope it happens. I think Norton would be a great Gordon Freeman on the silver screen. The producers would have to take some serious narative libierties, like he would have to be able to speak for one but I would really like to see what a director like Christopher Nolan would do with the script insted of some one like Uwe Boll.

http://files.pcapex.com/details.php?file=19 - calculate how much power you need.

http://www.buildeasypc.com/  - a great site with tons of info

http://sysbuild.corsairmemory.com/report.aspx?id=2 - general info, includes bio setup

http://www.memtest86.com/ - test your ram

http://compatible.corsairmemory.com/partner/asus/default.aspx?partnerid=42 - match corsair ram to Asus motherboard

http://reviews.cnet.com/7004-7254_7-0.html - test your internet speed

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1931913,00.asp 
a good article on Vista

http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu.html  directly compare CPU's

http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/referrer/srtest what games can you play on your computer

This is interesting...for a possible game boost
Ctrl+alt+del..task manager..processes
right click on game...set priority

http://www.fraps.com/ a video capture apps

http://securitytango.com/ keep your computer clean

Vista readiness tool  check you computer

Optimize your gaming quality