Birthday thoughts

On your day just want to say
That you can count on me
To be your lover til the end:
Just wait and you will see!
I know that you will be as true
To me for just as long.
No "if" or "but," no matter what,
Our commitment is strong.
So, my dear, I'm glad you're here
To share the joy and the pain.
I love you so, and long for your touch
-- Happy Birthday once again!

Hopping Mad... well crazy anyway!

I started doing Lindy Hop back in March. My wife had been learning for about 6 months, and talked me into giving it a go. The first time I was supposed to start classes, I sat in the car park outside too chicken to go in, which luckily only delayed things a month. My previous dancing experience consisted of a few weeks doing ball room dancing with some lovely old ladies back in '96, and a couple of sad attempts at co-ordinated movement in clubs since.

Being the movement challenged person that I am, I had been expecting the whole process to be painful and embarrassing. Little did I know how much fun Shane and Cheryl would make the whole learning experience (I luv Chez).

I was a convert by the end of the first class.

Two weeks after finishing beginners, I was lucky enough to be able to go to Hullabaloo. The weekend both inspired me, and opened my eyes to what Lindy Hop is all about.

I am now happily inflicting myself on many unsuspecting victims, secure in the knowledge that its all about having fun, and hopefully the steps and leads get sorted out somewhere along the way. I actually got though a dance at the last Splanky without stuffing something up. That just proves that miracles do happen.

I have never before met a group of people that has so much fun, regardless of size, age, weight, race, gender or asthetic appeal. Now that I have discovered Lindy Hoppers, you can be sure I'm going to hang round, and hope that some of the fun loving crazyness rubs off on me.

Besides... getting up close and personal with pretty girls all night is not something I'm adverse to!

$hit for brains terrorists!

The thing that bothers me... is that it appears that these "terrorists" (see london bombings) seem to have no real idea about how to really terrorise people!!!

Take the IRA for example. They would blow up a restaurant, then when crowds of people come... ie police and ems, they blow up another bomb positioned to take out all the newcomers.

Now that sort of tactic demoralises people, makes them shit scared and generally fucks up the soul of a country.

Who cares if some tosser knows how to get 7 bombs to go off all at the same time!! Once you let the first 2 or 3 off, the scale really doesnt matter, and it doesn't really increase the "terror" component. People just lose perspective of the horror of what has actually happened, and just say oh yeah... 7 bombs went off.

This whole thing has been bothering me since 911, why (from the terrorists perspective) would you put in such a big effort to hijack all those airliners, and not follow it up??? How long was it before people didn't give a crap and flew on planes as per normal.

I don't want to be giving anyone any ideas, although this aint nothing new... but if a group was REALLY motivated to disrupt western way of life... and given the recent example... target the public transport system, then they would be employing very different techniques.

If you look at special forces techniques when engaging an enemy, they employ something called shoot and scoot (I'm sure there are other names for it as well), but basically it means that once you have shot at the enemy from a particular location... MOVE!!! cause now the enemy knows where you are (muzzle flash and other crap like that), so then you shoot at them from somewhere else. The ones that do this technique really well can make the enemy think that they are up against a far larger force than what is really there.

Now if the tossers that let off these bombs in london had done maybe 2 or 3 on that day, then once a fortnight they let another one off... how long do you think it would be before the public transport system ceased to exist. If the public transport system is now longer around... then bend over london cause your about to feel the pineapple.

Ahhh... but you might say that the police will catch them before they get to far!!! Well thats probably right, which is why the extremist groups that like killing us nice western folk tend to use self contained cells. You send one cell off and say... Do your worst in July... At the same time, you send off another group that has no idea about the first one and say... Do your worst in August!!! Even if the cops catch the first group... suddenly next month trains start going poof!!! Public sentiment would be so crap you couldn't pay people to be politicians.

Now all this is really basic stuff that most terrorist groups that have been around for a while already employ.

So the question is... Why are these terrorists not really acting like terrorists?