Saaga

When we heard that John Howard had not only lost the election, but probably lost his seat, we were very happy. Finally we might be able to unravel ourselves from the stupid oil war and sign the Kyoto protocol and start behaving like a responsible and civilised nation. I must say though, that to go from the leader of the 51st largest country on the planet, to an unemployed senior citizen over night must be tough and he handled his speech with grace and dignity.
We are currently waiting for our flight out of Budapest and are sitting in an airport that feels more like a suburban shopping centre. M handled the flight here quite well and we are hoping she musters up he same fortitude for the return leg.

I regretted asking this question once I sat down to think about it.

I remember once on Radio proclaiming that the ‘Melnicks’ album ‘Schmelnicks’ was the album of the year for 1995, but now I look back and am not so sure. I still listen to it and think it’s great, but it doesn’t get into my top 10 for the decade.

A possible candidate for the top three is ‘(What’s the story) Morning Glory?’ by Oasis. I remember it being one of those rare albums that crossed into the mainstream nicely, but was still good enough that it wasn’t shunned by the indie scene.

I don’t expect many people will be able to answer this, seeing as how I have failed and it was my question. For a sense of completeness: Maybe a ‘You am I’ album, I’m thinking ‘Hi Fi way’ and then a Neds album, maybe ‘Are you normal?’.

M has a cold and she sounds like a little pig.

It is the year 2142 and you are a reporter for the ‘Voice of the Stars’ newspaper. People now live all over the Solar System and even on planets around other suns. You have just interviewed one of the explorers that made all this possible. Your editor wants you to turn the interview into a biography so that the brave explorer can be remembered forever.

Write an imaginary biography of a person that you make up.

Write it like a real biography:

-opening paragraph about their early life.

-each extra paragraph looking at one main event with supporting details.

-closing paragraph talks about what they are doing now.

Use your imagination:

-They might have explored Mars or a planet around another star.

-They may have invented or done something to make space exploration better in some way.

Something to think about:

-Did everyone that contributed to space exploration actually go into space?

I didn’t have a ticket for Tuesday night’s nil nil draw between Schalke and Chelsea at Gelsenkirchen, but luckily for me I have a ticket for Schalke’s game against Hamburg tomorrow afternoon. I am going with my friend Jan, who hopefully keeps his mouth shut about me being a Chelsea fan.
It has been a football week for me, as I managed to get a ticket to the Borussia Mönchen Gladbach game on Monday. They played Carl Zeiss Jena and won 2-1. It was a fantastic atmosphere, probably the best I have ever experienced and I can only imagine what it would be like if the opposing side had more the 500 fans. There were thousands of empty seats at the other end of the stadium, probably because it’s a five hour drive to Jena and on a Monday night that’s a bit much to expect of the unemployed.* The home fans made up the shortfall though, singing with gusto and screaming out a word I didn’t know, but have since added to my German vocabulary.

*They are from the East.

A couple of weeks ago I went to Spiel messe in Essen, which is the largest games convention in Europe. I have managed to miss it the last couple of years because I was travelling, but thanks to M grounding us for a while, I managed to fit this one in.
Essen is not far away, but I rarely go there because it is kind of crap. They are famous for the Spiel messe, the Auto messe and their Christmas markets and nothing else. Don’t get me wrong. I went to both the Auto messe and the Christmas markets there last year and they were great; the Christmas market is far superior to any other I have been to. it’s just that the city itself has very little else to offer. Nuff said.
I am always heartened when I get involved in anything gaming related, in the same way a viking is heartened by a fjord or a junkie by a needle. It’s difficult to explain to a non gamer so I will put it simply. If aliens came to Earth and said to me, that i had to give up one of football, beer or games, or face the consequences, it wouldn’t be games that I surrendered*
Another thing that I love about places like this is that I saw so many versions of my friends (only germanified) there. I saw:

A few Robs
An Andrew
A That Chris
A Not that Chris
Four Tancreds
A Chelle or two
A bunch of Scotts
Several Jaimes
An Evelyn
A pair of Jasons
Plenty of Kurts
Some Shannons
Numerous Daves of both types
My clone many times or possibly many clones of me

and
An infinity of Damiens

*I know that comes off as a little arrogant, me assuming that after crossing the gulf of space in their super advanced interstellar craft, that a superior race would think up some kind of mettle testing conundrum for me, but what the hell.