Agistment

What the fuck is an agistment? Haha, no matter, I just looked it up. I didn't even realise such a thing was still in existence.

I'm back at work today, and oh god it's so annoying. I'd rather be at home. Yesterday was a nice and relaxing day. Was just getting back into poker, which I have not played in some time. It's a very fun activity, even when you're not gambling for money. Great way to get to know people, and to learn a game that is seemingly simple at first glance, but is incredibly complex in terms of strategy and psychology that may be employed. Chess and poker, ahh, what more do you need, really?!

Also got back into Shogun 2: Total War. Goddamn, that game is fucking intense. It's so much more harder than any previous total war game. I'm playing as the Shimazu, and holy fuck, I'm still stuck on the first island, just trying to consolidate! Now due to trying to build up steady infrastructure, I have a shitty army, and now I'm being attacked from the sea by an overwhelming force. I'm now fighting a continual battle for one city where I get smashed in sieges, then build up a big army from other provinces, come in, take it back, and then lose it again in the space of 3 turns! Ahh, it's great though! Not as easy as it was before. Then again, the original Rome Total War was a bit hard in places, I remember some absolutely epic battles that I won, when I should have lost. I'm just a little miffed that I lost my old Medieval 2 games when my old computer broke down. Cause I had almost finished some of the expansions, and the last saved game I had on the main game was all my Kings/Princes etc. in the one town to siege it and just lay waste to it.

I've also been getting back into the swing of things on the blog intro/retrospective. I'm up to February 2005 now, so progress is slow, but I've been enjoying the reading, as well as some of the memories it conjures up.  
Although it's not so pleasant when your normal life creates memories that are downright unpleasant.

I read today that humans have become less intelligent over time, from the era when we started to live in larger communities in agricultural based societies. What an interesting proposition. Spatial intelligence for smaller communities was vital as a means of staying alive and thriving; however, when safety in numbers was possible, particular gene inhibitors for intelligence kicked in. What a strange thing to have happen. But I guess that does fit in with how I view society - i.e. that a crowd is only as smart as the dumbest person in it etc.

As I did mention in a previous e-mail, I really dislike condoms. Now that's a very controversial thing for a fairly socially liberal person to say, but hang with me on this point. It makes sex less enjoyable. I recall reading a quote from Jack Nicholson where he likened having sex with a condom to having sex with a humid garbage bag on your penis. I have to agree! Ok, I'm ignoring the STD and pregnancy issues at play here, because I wouldn't have sex with someone who was likely to give me an STD, and I wouldn't sleep with anyone who I wouldn't mind having a child with (ok, let's not get into a whole feminist argument about the other point of view, because I'm just explaining my thought process here). Condoms not for me! Haha, I sound like a rapper, don't I?

Also great to see some action from the Federal Government on the rather rampant sexual abuse of children in the Catholic Church. For those of you not in the know, a Royal Commission has been set up to investigate these claims in Australia. We know the problem is endemic in society. I love and respect the Church, despite not being a catholic (or even a christian), but the lack of action from the hierarchy has been disappointing and disgusting, to say the least. The doctrine of complete celibacy for the priesthood is complete stupidity. You cannot overcome millions of years of evolution just like that. You put people in a position of trust and it will be abused by those with power over the vulnerable. You cannot put that at stake, when even one person can falter like that and negatively impact so many lives. This is compounded by the fact that the Church didn't bother to report most of these incidents, and instead just transferred to other areas to again carry out these heinous acts.

Spare a thought for the families affected by this, who have been put in the horrific position of having something like this happen to them because of their faith. What would that do to a person? Wow, I can't even begin to imagine.

Just looking back on this entry, and I'm quite pleased! Just need all the planets to align and I can keep this up! It's a monster!

It's just a strange feeling that you get, when you have to consider the memories and whatever else they do to you. I should have known really.

Does intelligence entitle you to anything, or even everything? That's an ethical dilemma right there. I would say no, because intelligence in of itself isn't always wielded in the best of manners. A simpleton may even always 'do the right thing'.

Well it's nice to just be able to put things behind you from time to time. Other times, maybe not so. Am I acting out here?

Just read an interesting thing about how blogger.com operates. For those of you not in the know, you can set a blog to private, so that only selected people can view the psots you make in the blog. So far, blogger has limited readership of these private blogs to 100. Apparently google (who now owns blogger) employs people to actually monitor every single one of these private blogs and track their movements across the entire google network. They do say that 9 out of 10 times, these private blogs are hate speech and other related vile filth, but it makes me a little uncomfortable that google is sort of putting limits on what is supposed to be free speech, as well as engaging in surveillance of people's activities. Then again, what sort of price do you put on security? It's pretty messed up.

Not sure about keeping up this concept of blogging almost every weekday. Then again, I may as well, considering that I can't read up on the blog while I'm at work.

Speaking of the blog, readership is a little bit all over the place! Australia has now crept up into 2nd place, and I think the key drivers of this are information relating to Karen Tso, Dana Kronental, as well as my misnomer title "Girls Girls Girls Sex Sex Sex" which I stole from Red Dwarf, I wasn't even trying to indicate anything untoward! Haha, traffic has spiked, but general readership is down from earlier in the year, but that's ok. I don't do this for the kudos or the numbers, I do it for me, cause I feel like doing it. Speaking of Red Dwarf, I have got series X, so I'm looking forward to watching it. Hopefully it's better than that piece of crap that was Back To Earth, which was not funny at all, and sort of ruined things.

It makes me ill, it really does, just thinking about it.

Anyhow, this has been a productive day, had a lot on my mind. Let's leave it there.

Joaquin out.