From a sleepless concoction of squeaky clean floor tiles, gently whirring rotating stairs, and polished steel handrails. Luggage, trolleys, glass and concrete.

A change of display and a film scene boarding gate dash.

A foreign capitol Customers: LIMITED time special offer to download 15 bonus ringtones converter for all Sprint, Cingular, poker gratuitonoble pokertilt poker7 card stud gratisstri pokerdownload giochi poker gratistavoli da gioco pokerpoker texano on linepoker on line in italiano7 card stud inlineapoker il giocodownload live pokereuropean poker tourper giocare a pokertornei di pokerpoker online bonusscommesse internetpoker online italiatorneo poker on linepoker on line gratis,poker gratis,download video poker gratisgioco video poker gratisgiochi internetholdem poker,poker texas holdem on line,holdem poker downloadgiochi di poker on linescaricare gratis pokerstrip poker flashpoker comstrategia pokeronline casino gamescasino’ onlineregole crapswww giochi casinoslots machine gratisvip casinogioco di roulettebaccarat onlinemobile casino gamesgiochi jack blackplay free baccarat onlinepc game casinoall slotsgiochi on line casinosistemi rouletteroulette europeacasino bonus no depositi casino onlineonline kenoblack jackcasino per pccarrier to noise ratiocasino da scaricare gratis Verizon. glides towards us as dusky buildings blend with cloudy twilight. A lit, charged a lot of money. red window guarding a stool, mobile phone and make up as next door, behind a curtain, dark minds grind against dirty linen.

Q: What would you rather lose; your ability to reason logically, or your capability to experience emotion?

I remember hearing this question asked by a Cambridge professor of Philosophy to a ten year old child on a BBC documentary about gifted young children. The ten year old had an IQ of 150 and answered “My emotions.”

If you choose to lose your emotions then it is your enjoyment of logical reasoning which drives the choice. You would lose that which you had based your decision on. Is enjoyment a form of emotion or pleasure? Is the latter an example of the former?

If you could not experience emotions would you still have morals or are morals developed through emotional empathy for others. Could social conditioning be enough to render a moral framework for the robot?

Last year I thought that anime was reserved for some kind of sub-geek I wasn’t happy to associate with, since then along with a multitude of new interests, locations and cultures, my exposure to this magical, color-filled realm of cartoon fantasy filled with wide-eyed innocence of character and adult (sometimes dubious) content has burgeoned.

It started about this time last year, I discovered the Winamp SHoutcast TV channels and along with my campus accommodation’s abundance of bandwidth proceeded to waste many partially clothed weeks coding project’s on one monitor paralleled by a continuous stream of digi-visual pleasure from the far east, brought into manageable, subtitled chunks by the slightly obsessed people at AZNV.net. Starting with the sit-coms, the girly films we all secretly enjoy, the insane car chases and as something to kill time it soon became a permanent corner-eye distraction of back-to-back “must see” 30 episode epics.

The leap from human-based to human-created content was a gradual one, I had seen only one anime creation in my life previously, namely Spirited Away (a now classic creation of Miyazaki, a popular and personal favorite), and this had been whilst in the company of friends, alcohol, weed and partial consciousness; needless to say it didn’t strike me in any way I was able to remember. I mentioned the film to my girlfriend Crystal (20, Chinese, wears glasses) who gasped in evocation of childhood memories at the mention of the title and insisted she bring around her copy and I watch it properly…

WOW! I cannot give this film the justice it deserves and instead direct you towards the IMDB reviews of people far more lexically poised and in greater understanding of the many sub plots.

I suppose that was the breakthrough point for me, I quickly got hold of Mizayaki’s other films and devoured the fantastical color, story and squeaky alien voices, I marveled at the smooth, rich, attention-to-detail animation which concreted the creator as one of the greats and sucked me into vibrant, flowing, wonderlands in a way Disney could only dream of.

Next I tried some anime series’ and realized my previous exposure to this genre was already more than I first thought, Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh had already at some point gained my attention and interest and I remember sheepishly at age sixteen explaining to my four year younger brother that I had organized his Pokemon card collection for him as an afternoon, 400 piece, jigsaw puzzle of inventive names and special abilities. If you have seen these shows before (I know they have at least appeared on Sky One) then I urge you not to judge the genre by them. It like saying The Simpsons sucks because Scooby Doo sucks – they are both cartoons being the inadequate and simplistic reasoning.

A couple of shows I have since enjoyed and recommend to you all are:

1. Full Metal Alchemist
2. Card Captor Sakura (I think it’s a kids show, but still great)
3. Yu-Gi-Oh (yes, even after what I said above)

What makes anime magical for me, what keeps me hitting the torrents for more is the cutting of fantastical, good vs. evil, clean-cut, vibrant, colorful and fun adventure with healthy chunks of sex and violence.

Tired of forgetting the details of life and an unshakable need to access a computer to arrange anything I have taken the long thought about plunge of starting a diary. In it I plan to record significant events and thoughts, some of which will no doubt end up on this page, as well as a general external memory for facts, figures and details I don’t feel confident I will remember naturally.

Hopefully I will keep to it at least long enough to fill the first volume, that much is my current target and I would hope for in the least it will have use as a humorous read-back in times to come.

Have your cake, and eat it.

Over a cardboard stand at the roadside we bought tickets to the Bosnia vs Croatia football match in Sarajevo fully aware of the rivalry between the former Yugoslavian nations.

As we walked the chants from the national stadium became clearer, and outside an array of portable fast food, bottled water in buckets of mostly molten ice and discount ticket sellers jostled for our tourist cash.

We were searched upon entry, although hardly throughly, and joined the Eastern stands amongst what we soon realised were the hardcore Bosnian fans, the Croats were just a little further to the South – well within throwing distance the soon to ensue missile exchange made apparent.

A Croat thrown firework fell just short of us, spurring a barrage of missiles and a renewed vigor to the constant taunts. A counter firework landed deep inside the Croat fans and the missile exchange thickened as a large firework exploded between the sides, shaking the ground – a little too far for the riot police who surged forward into retreating fans on both sides, thankfully the panicked stampede lost momentum just before it reached us.

All the time, shirtless men facing back towards the crowd from the front leading chants I could not understand, except perhaps for the simple I love Bosnia. Strange that they enjoy the rivalry and demonstration of hate more than the sport which gives them a cause to unite in.

The game ended 3-5 to Croatia with some great goals, but for me the football suffered a convincing defeat to the excitement of first-hand crowd violence.

I recently gazed down at london from the Golden Gallery at the top of St Paul’s Cathedral and as I was watching the ant sized people milling around I began to categorize them by their location, appearance and actions into the various roles they play; a SimCity esque top-down view of daytime society.

Office Workers: ‘Suits’

• Discussions at lunchtime, important decisions, talking loudly on thier mobile phones, ‘top of their game’ when not always the case.
• Brains of the city, organizing people and resources for their own/owners profit.
• Supporting near by conveniences with carefree overpriced purchases. A new shirt or suit to renew their unmatched ideals of being a smart, professional in a dynamic, challenging, enjoyable role.

Tourists

• A day of walking and sights to be seen, packed lunches and photographs.
• Spending money for entry, souvenirs and sometimes just because ‘Hey, we’re on holiday’.

Maintenance

• Keep the city moving, sweeping away the consequences of the actions of other roles.
• Safety and cleanliness, making the city somewhere tourists like to visit and people like to work.
• Kept separate from the cities customers by uniform.
• A background process of tireless units, ignored for purity of conscience, invisible but essential.

A first class cabin window looking across a desert farmland; sparsely spaced mountains, rivers and beauty.

Crumbling concrete and rusted steel from a thousand abandoned factories; piles of train parts, forever waiting assembly.

According to The General Book of Ignorance (a brilliant book I would recommend to anyone) – two.

After reading this I ended up having an argument with my mum about its truth, she said that the book just picked up silly and contestable reasons why things everybody thought they knew for sure could be wrong. I argued that while some of the arguments given might be obscure, they are still factually correct, and to shrug them off is a form of willful ignorance.

Take the above question about the number of wives Henry VIII had, in order to reach the number two the author, Stephen Fry, relies on the principals of marriage annulment, as much a part of Catholicism and as legally binding as marriage itself. Two of Henry VIII’s marriages were annulled – which is not the same being divorced, annulment means that the marriage did not happen and both annulments were valid and legal based on Catholic values and rules, namely that the marriage was not consummated or that the bride was betrothed at the time of marriage.

To me this would seem a sound argument that we can at least strike out two of Henry VIII’s supposed six wives. It is clear that to acknowledge he married at all relies on the acknowledgment of Catholicism’s power to perform such an act. It must then follow that annulment is acknowledged, and if the process of annulment results according to Catholicism that the marriage never existed then we must also accept that.

To say that he did have six wives because he had six wedding ceremonies with six different women is to be naive about the reality of the meaning of marriage, and perhaps ignorant as to the properties of annulment.

I stumbled upon (not this one) the web comic xkcd today and started reading from the first post until finding this UTTER GENIUS!