Nonsense, Drivel, and Balderdash

It is nearly 3 in the morning and I just got back from the cinema. Ah, the late showings. Cheaper, and you can find movies that most places do not have. Besides, it was at the Phoenix film-house, which is a more independent cinema than the Odeon owned theaters here. I became a member the first week I was here. So far I have seen 3 movies there, two of them for free because I know the deals going on. So far I have seen: -Howls Moving Castle: A Miyasaki animated film. In the same whimsical style of his other movies. Not as dark as Mononoke nor as lighthearted as Spirited Away. In some ways it was that lack of definition that hurt it. Or maybe it was just because he didnt actually write this one. Do not get me wrong, it was still better than any other animated film to come out this year and better than most non animated ones. Miyasaki is such a master. It is a shame that many animated movies are dismissed as cartoons and assumed that they are meant for children. His stuff is universal, se...

These pictures are from a couple weeks ago. We went for a great walk to a pub for lunch. When kenny was here I took him to the same pub, and we walked the same paths. It is a great promenade and the pub is sweet. So here are some pictures. Here we are... and a cow... geez.. that was pretty self explanatory Nice, nice. Walking through a field... next to the Thames, much smaller here than in london. Ah, here we are sitting on a felled tree. A big one. The poet Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote "Binsey Poplars." In it, he was bummed because he used to walk the same walk as we did and would enjoy the trees. Then they cut them down in 1879 and replanted smaller ones (for safety reasons I guess). Ironically enough, this is one of the trees they planted in their place, now also cut down and replaced with young trees: felled 1879 My aspens dear, whose airy cages quelled, Quelled or quenched in leaves the leaping sun, All felled, felled, are all felled; Of a fresh and following fo...

This has been a long time coming I think. My faith crisis has been going on for a couple of years now. Different stages have come and gone. This summer I wanted to give up on my search once and for all. I cannot give up without knowing that I have given it my best. The only way I know how to give it my best is the traditional way I suppose, bible reading, church, prayer. So I give myself until the end of the year to get things cleared up, or I am giving up for good. But I am going to give it my best. A year is a long time. If God wants me, here I am. My faith level is obviously at an all time low, but I want to believe. Hehe, "I want to believe"... I saw that on a poster with a UFO on it once. I am pretty miserable just being in the middle, so either hot or cold, I'm sick of lukewarm. So here it goes, the last hurrah. I know people worry about me, so here it goes: The skeptic's corner A second blog where I will post the problems I have with my search. I am not trying...

I recently received an intriguing email. It read as follows: Ryan, I hope things are going well at Oxford. Also, I hope you haven't been making any prank calls using my name. Take care, Barry Loy Dean of Students The pranking in question occurred over a year ago, some friends and I were in my apartment trying to have fun. But the x-box soon grew boring, and people had pilfered the kitchen as much as they were going to be able to (the girls mostly complained of the lack of foods not relating to the starch or meat varieties). Someone finally suggested the cliché yet funny idea of prank calls. It was late enough that we were more than ready to laugh at anything that happened to even be remotely funny, so the stage for a good set of pranking was set. None of us could do it without laughing except for the master of all that is hilarious, Wuske. We decided not to go with the traditional "Hello sir, I'm calling from CET, it seems that we have detected a large number of pornograph...

Has anyone ever had that experience where you put on a song or album that you once listened to intensely for a small period of time. If you havent listened to it since then the memories of that era suddenly come rushing back in an amazingly vivid way. That just happened to me with Citizen Cope, whom I listened to quite a bit towards the end of the summer. Suddenly I was sitting in my room in Bromley again. The smell of dank clothing and mulch filled my nostrils as I visualized the clothes I wore in grounds crew strewn across the carpeted floor. Funny, I even visualized a specific time, right between the time I got off from work and went to dinner. The sunlight gave it away. Then, of course, all the friends I made this summer came bursting into my memory as well. Each of them with their gifts and glorious imperfections that make each one of them so unique. Strange, I think with all the bustle of departure from campus, and the insanity of settling down in Oxford, I had not really stopped...

I am sitting in my lilliputian sized room, at what can scarcely be called a desk, in the ringing silence of my Oxford house. How was that for an opening line? Catchy? Have a... "ring"... to it? I caught the attention of the reader, by using the slightly esoteric word lilliputian, which would be a nice one for scrabble. We have a board here, but I have not played yet. Of course, my positive critique is sarcastic. It is a terrible line. For one thing, it is whiny, and I have nothing to whine about. Yes, my room is small, but I like it that way actually. I grew up with a small room and I think I am more at home in a manageable sized space. Also, the word "sized" is kind of redundant next to the adjective lilliputian, which already denotes size. Neither did I mention that the small space is mine and mine alone. No roommates or people to have to be considerate towards (not that I am very considerate anyway, just ask David). Yes, I am aware that I am writing in fragmented...