It's Christmastime Motherfucka

Do you know what time of year it is?


...

Yes! It's conspiracy theory time! We all know that, around the end of the year, the doomsday predictions come thick and fast. And this year, what with the Mayan calendar (a reliable source of information) ending, you cannot stop the doom! Some observations:

• Any time that someone uses the phrase 'mainstream media', they can be immediately discredited as a paranoid lunatic. Yes, we get it, the mainstream media won't give any airtime to your ridiculous theory. You are not being persecuted and the media is not being controlled by the Illuminati or some shit.
• On the media, why do people actually care about what the Westboro Baptist Church do? Oh, a small fringe group think that gay people should die. Um... who cares? There are like two dozen of these lunatics. I am not fazed by anything that they do, other than maybe some degree of detached amusement. And the people who say that if a god existed he/she/it wouldn't support what the WBC do, where does this come from? Who says that gods have to be just or good?
• And on that note, the shootings in the US last week are not because there is no more forced prayer in schools. Please provide some evidence that this causation (not just a correlation, even if there was one) exists. And anyway, how does this work? Does God send people to shoot up schools that don't force the children to worship him or does he just not stop prospective shooters? Certainly puts into question the Christian notion of free will.

Is there really any actual war on Christmas? I celebrate Christmas. And what does Christmas mean to me? I get to spend time with my family, exchange gifts, eat good food and just relax. It is a nice way to end the year and put whatever happened into perspective while we gear up for the next year. If Christmas didn't exist, we would invent a holiday like it (which we did before Christmas existed, anyway). Christmas is essentially a secular holiday now, anyway, it's really just the name that Christians cling to. And just because we use a name, that doesn't mean that any extra meaning behind that name must always stick with it? The names of the days of the week, anyone?

While I'm on the topic of religion, I was talking to a friend the other day and he was interested in buying some bibles and whatnot and studying up on Christianity (and other religions) in order to be prepared if he ever fell into a discussion with a Christian. Now, do we have an obligation to be familiar with Christianity before dismissing it? I don't think so, as there are many things that we don't believe without needing an understanding of the topic; for example, for the religious, the vast majority aren't familiar with every other religion on the planet, does that mean they are not justified in believing there's exclusively? Of course not. I'm familiar with almost ever pro-religion argument there is, I don't need to be intimate with the bible to know that it is bollocks. If there was real truth to it, then wouldn't it be indisputable that a god exists? Why else does almost everyone credible dispute the validity of the bible?

I cut myself shaving 4 hours ago, why am I still fucking bleeding? Maybe I'll just put a bandaid on my face. And then tape my broken glasses together.

Let's move on, shall we?

It is Christmas, and because of that, I have bought gifts! Luckily, my family are very predictable, and I can thus get them similar gifts each year. Dad gets a book on lighthouses, Mum gets candles and Steph gets a kitten desk calendar. So easy. Feel the love.


So, that's about it. Dangas is having a 20th birthday party tomorrow night which I'm going to, I'm not sure how many other people are going to turn up... It may just be Dangas, his girlfriend and myself. Or maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised. It's an hour long trip on the train so it had better be worth it. Daniel also fancies himself as an amateur bartender, so for his birthday I bought him a book on bartending, it comes with over 1500 drink recipes! He's actually getting pretty good at it, he has all the equipment and stuff. He has certainly come a long way from the days of all his drinks consisting of whatever we could scavenge from around Oliver's dad's house (read: milk and and vodka, iced tea and vodka, cordial and vodka... you get the idea).

This is his drinks cabinet. It fucking glows and changes colour.

Here's a fun drinking story. The first time I ever got drunk was at a 2010/11 new years party (I know, but drinking as a teenager KILLS BRAIN CELLS. Or something. I didn't start drinking until way past everyone else had, and well after my friend's mother had a 'wardrobe malfunction'. So I started drinking vodka straight out of the bottle (ooh, tough guy, huh?) and it turns out that drunk me is pretty similar to sober me, but dizzier and about 10% more extreme. My friend's 'Uncle' Mark (the responsible adult, who looked like a member of the Rolling Stones) took us around the streets as we rang people's doorbells then ran away, which may have been the first time anyone did that since a Dennis the fucking Menace cartoon in the 50s. We got back home and we were chilling in the lounge when it turned out I needed to throw up. I shambled over to the door, as we were warned not to throw up on the carpet. I struggled opening the door but luckily managed to open it just in time as I preceded to puke on the pavement just outside the door. No, I couldn't be bothered walking 10 feet to the bushes, the pavement was fine. I came back in but left shortly to go throw up again, where I got a nice pep talk from Uncle Mark about... something, I don't remember. I'm sure it was heartfelt. Uncle Mark then let me sleep outside on a pool chair, being covered by a small towel, where I preceded to get stung by mosquitoes about 100 times in the night. Responsible. Luckily I was not hungover, but had the taste of vodka in my mouth for the next 24 hours. And Uncle Mark had an asthma attack the next morning and had to go hospital.


Hmm, that story was actually really boring. Oh yeah, it was a toga party too. I wore a horrible, massive sheet. You had to have been there. I don't have many other drinking stories, one time I got set on fire and it made a hole in my work pants, that was it though. I have some stories of some of my other lunatic friends, but I'll save them for another time (I'll probably have to change the names too in those ones).

Peace.