Other worlds

Parallel universes, alternate dimensions, whatever you want to call them: the possibility of other worlds has infiltrated science and science fiction, to the point where most people have an opinion on the subject.

To read about the scientific debate behind the multiverse theory, read this Wikipedia article. I'm no scientist; I'd rather talk about the philosophical implications, if that's alright with you.

If this world is merely one of many, all slightly (or radically) different; if every choice sends us shooting down one leg of the trousers of time; what does this mean?
It means that whatever you do (killing someone, falling off a cliff, adopting a child) had to be done in some universe.
It means that, somewhere out there, Romeo and Juliet lived to a ripe old age, or never met.
It means that we can work around all the little ideological glitches of time travel.
It means that however remote the chances of life are, it was bound to happen somewhere, and that there are probably loads of unoccupied universes out there, and maybe many where dinosaurs still roam the earth, or where only Venus supports life.

So choice doesn't matter in the multiverse, because viewed from the outside it's just everything happening. Absolutely everything.

If, on the other hand, there is only one world, one universe, and this is it, well what does that mean?
It means what you do matters.
Your choices have consequences.
This is your one chance to get things right.
It means that something as colossally unlikely as life must have a purpose of some sort, and should therefore be valued and treated with respect.

Okay, so the multiverse theory is exciting, in a Star Trek kind of way. Other species, other stories, a world where you married Claudia Schiffer, anything and everything your imagination can concieve. But I personally find it much more thrilling to imagine that my life, my decisions, somehow count. I think it's better that way; better if we live knowing that the way we do things will be the way things are done, and that nothing can change that.

It just feels nicer, doesn't it? To know that you're not a murderer, you never were and hopefully never will be? Anywhere? Ever? To know that you can create yourself in your image, and that it matters?

I think it's a more beautiful idea, and that it's true.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOSIE!!!

As of about 6.30pm, I have another cousin, weighing in at seven nine. Welcome to the world, Josie babe, I'm looking forward to meeting you! x x

P.S.

Oh, and in much more interesting news, I'M GONNA MEET DAVE I AM I AM!!

Zude

I know, I know, I'm being a very naughty little blogger and not updated as often as I should. It's just that I've found this new site...

Yes, and thus commences another mini-obsession.

But this time it's different, I promise! At the risk of sounding like an advert, Zude lets you customise your page. Nothing special? Well, I need it because I can insert my myspace page, my facebook profile, my bebo page, both my blogs, blah blah blah - I can put ALL my pages from ALL over the internet on this one site, and that is what I have done. You can check out my profile here.

It isn't even out of beta yet, I managed to find this one early, and I'm pretty sure it's going to be quite popular. I hope so, it certainly deserves to be just for the sheer variety of what you can put in there. The way it stands is that you can copy and paste pretty much any kind of code into your pages! (Yes, pages. And it's all free too.)

There's plenty of stuff it doesn't do yet, but as I said it's still in beta. The one that's really grating is the fact that it's not firefox compatible yet; I had to download internet explorer (said with much venom). I'd forgotten how much it sucks.

A few days after creating my Zude profile, a message turned up on my myspace from a guy who works for them asking for feedback, which I thought was very cool. I have officially "consolidated my web presence", as they put it.

The launch date is the 1st of May, but if you're super-excited and want to get started right away, there's still a lot you can do!

Thought Life

What a weird phrase. Thought Life. I've come across it three times today, which is enough of a coincidence to make me think about it. Again and again today I'm coming across the same verses.

“...Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right , whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable… think about such things .” Philippians 4:8

“...Take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ." 2 Corinthians 10:5

That's the kind of discipline I've forgotten lately. The kind that keeps an iron grip over my thoughts, not allowing my mind to wander too far from what I know is acceptable in real life...

But let's not be too serious, eh?

The thing with the flower

Ok, in the light of Dave's latest post, I thought I'd explain the thing with the flower. Because, as with everything I do, I have my reasons. And, as with everything I do, I forget that nobody knows what they are until I tell them.



The flower once had pride of place in my room, and it would just sit there in the glass drops looking pretty. But I entered a phase of my life when I'd come across random stories of goodness and positivity, and they inspired me.

I decided to send my flower on a little journey. I tied a little tag to it that read "You are loved! Pass this on to someone you care about." I had visions of it passing from person to person, travelling the world and showing that we were all connected by bonds of love... I was quite the little hippie!

But, as with all the best half-formed ideas, it didn't work out that way. I gave it to my brother, he gave it to our mum, and she gave it to me. I realised that the flower would most probably only travel in little circles, and gave up. (Yes, I was quite the little half-arsed hippie. Shocking.)

So, how did it find its way into Dave's hands, you must be wondering! Well I decided that if there's anything I own that sends the simple, clear message "I care about you", that was it.

Plus, it's also kinda funky.


___


Some inspirational projects for you!

DON'T READ THIS POST

Ok, I found this one here, although the video really doesn't matter because these messages crop up everywhere. This one was posted by Blueblaze2000, who I'm sure is a very intelligent and rational person, who merely suffered from a momentary lack of judgement when posting the following:
WHEN U R READING THIS DONT STOP OR SOMETHING BAD WILL HAPPEN MY NAME IS SUMMER I AM 15 YEARS OLD i have BLONDE HAIR , SCARS no NOSE OR EARS I AM DEAD IF U DONT COPY THIS JUS LIKE FROM THE RING COPY N POST THIS ON 5 MORE SITES OR I WILL APPEAR ONE CREEPY NIGHT WEN UR NOT ExPECTING IT BY YOUR BED WITH A NIFE AND KILL U THIS IS NO JOKE SUMMET ING GOOD WILL HAPPEN TO U IF YOU POST THIS ON 5 MORE FLASH BOXES

Verbatim. I have to admit, I found this the most hilarious chain comment I've ever read! The "blonde hair, scars, no nose or ears" bit just sounds too much like a personal in the Transylvanian Times. And "just like from the Ring", that's priceless! This dead girl - Summer - is obviously a fan of Japanese horror flicks, isn't that nice. Sorry, I mean she was, she is of course dead. Although we have nobody's word but hers on that.

I'd show a lot more respect for the dead if they could spell, quite frankly, and there's just no excusing that punctuation - even if she is a creature from beyond the grave.

So, she has presented me with a choice. Death in my bed by knife wound, one creepy night (lest we forget), or "summet ing good". And this isn't the only one, as this blog shows... Fortunately, I know how to outwit these evil curses.

My counter-curse:
When you're reading this post, stop if you want. Nobody really cares. My name is Anna, I'm 19, I enjoy long walks by the sea and devouring the souls of innocents. If you copy any more of these ridiculous chain comments, I will personally show up by your bed with a common-sense stick and bludgeon you over the head with it until you get a clue or die, whichever happens first. If you copy this into more web sites, however, you will be noticed and applauded by intelligent people the world over.

What's red and stupid?

Ohmygosh. Ohmygosh, ohmygosh.

Deev, I love you, and you're all kinds of awesome, and I want to meet your friends and your family and your cat.

And some other stuff that I'll maybe say in private, I'm just so excited... sorry! What an inappropriate place to say all this...

I'm wearing it, it's beautiful... sorry my gift couldn't have been better, I ran out of time too, but I hope you'll like it anyway. I'll make up for it as soon as I get the chance. And I'm thinking of making the chance happen.

Love you, Deev. Love you.

Oh, and the answer's 'me'.

Wasted seconds

Get Your Monster Name

Get Your Sexy Name

Get Your Cyborg Name

In other news, going camping for a couple of days.

The Perfect Murder - from a media standpoint anyway

A young, blonde, blue-eyed pregnant woman called Krystal Hart was murdered. That's horrible. Of course it is, murder is always horrible, but a little cynical voice in my head is whispering snidely that maybe the story wouldn't have gotten as much press coverage if she'd been a 45 year old ugly woman called Meg Brown. (Meg, if you're out there, stop crying. You're gorgeous.)

Is our media influenced by the marketability of the stories? You bet it is. It's influenced by many factors: how important the events are (of course), how pretty the victims / perpetrators are, how amusing the story is, how trendy the subject is, lest we forget. Trendy news stories, are they something you've ever thought about? Because it's not as if paedophilia is sometimes in season, you know. No, one story is picked up on, and it sparks a wave of similar stories that would have gone unnoticed being thrust into the spotlight.

The sociologists have a term for it - moral panics - which describes the snowball effect of certain types of story - murder, mugging, rape - getting disproportionate attention. Or maybe, getting the attention they finally deserve. Because there's no denying that we like to gloss over things sometimes.

But mainly it's jealousy. I'll bet Krystal Hart got all the attention when she was alive, too.

Smarties

We all love Smarties, don't we. Of course we do! Little brightly coloured pixies of sugary fun.



But that was before. Before they stole the most beautiful Smartie of them all. Even the orange-flavoured Smarties paled in significance to their vivid blue sister! But the blue has been taken. Leaving us with what?



FLIPPIN'

MUD-COLOURED

HIPPIE BEANS.

I don't know who the bright spark was who thought of removing not only the blue but the JOY from our favourite little chocolates, but I'd like to have some serious words with them. I know they had artificial stuff in, I Don't Care. If I was that concerned about being all-natural I'd go around naked and refuse to shave my legs.

Poor Smarties. It's been all downhill since they scrapped the tubes; did they not know the minutes of fun you could have firing the lids at people?! Yes, first the Smartie-gun was laid to rest, then the blue ones, and soon they'll be sugar-free with no chocolate.

So naturally, being the armchair activist that I am, I looked for the many "Save the Blue Smartie Campaigns" that I was sure would be out there on the world wide interwebs... and what did I find? This, and only this. Shocking. Appalling. Utterly disappointing; it seems that nobody really cares.

Well, I'd like this blog post to serve as an eternal reminder: I care. I loved the Blue Smarties. I loved the bright colours, and I miss them.

Shakespearian Shenanigans

I was tempted to write this post in iambic pentameter, but I thought I'd spare you that particular blessing. Lucky old you.

I just finished watching the latest episode of Doctor Who, one of my few televisual addictions, and I just wanted to (without any avoidable spoilers) let you guys know what I thought.

The iambic pentameter was well and appropriately used, which for a true-blue wannabe poet such as myself was just delicious!

And the Harry Potter references were very funny indeed. Can't wait to read book seven.

Do you guys watch it? What did you think?

Buffy Personality Test

Dawn Summers 54% amorality, 72% passion, 72% spirituality, 54% selflessness

Dawn is a person driven by her love for her friends and her desire to make a difference. Perhaps you are, too. You're willing to do whatever is necessary to do what is right for those you care about, and sometimes this can get you in a little bit of trouble. Most of all, however, you have a heart of gold. Congratulations!

Thanks Again! -- THE 4-VARIABLE BUFFY PERSONALITY TEST

Dear Diary

I used to start diaries all the time; never stuck to them. It would only take a few days before I'd get bored, give it up. That is, until I was 15...

I introduced my friends to the Very Secret Diaries by Cassandra Claire, quite possibly the funniest Lord of the Rings parody out there, and they loved it (naturally)! So a couple of us decided it would be fun to start our own Very Secret Diaries. I think our initial aim was to make it to 100 days.Well, against all the odds, I succeeded - I think everyone else had given up by then, but I was still handing my diary around and letting people laugh at me, and it felt good!

My theory is that I managed to keep it up that time because life gets truly interesting when you hit 13, and after that you practically NEED to write everything down just to keep up with it.

Over time, the diary became less funny and more honest. It became private. I would write down my thoughts in detail, and I felt good about it. I kept that up for years, no exaggeration; for over 1000 days (admittedly not every day) I was writing in this thing. I had about 5 notebooks of the stuff in a box in my room, and I had a detailed account of what I'd been doing with myself.

After a while though, I think it was in 6th form, I gave it up. I decided that this blog would replace it, and for a while that's what has happened, but if you think about it, diaries and blogs are very different. There's no getting around the fact that what I put in public will be very different to what I write in private. As my English teacher would have pointed out, it's a matter of audience - when I'm writing for you, I'll be more entertaining (I hope!) and less personal; whereas when I'm writing for myself, I can cover the topics that interest me and nobody else.

So, with that in mind, I've started writing my diary again. Good News for me, completely irrelevant for you. Just thought I'd say.

By the way, you're looking lovely today, have you done something different with your hair?

A rose by any other name

Updating mah blawg... yeah.

I decided to fill you guys in on my many and varied names. Over a lifetime, I find that it's possible to accumulate many nicknames, aliases, and alter-egos, and I would like to share a few of those (the ones I can remember!) with you now.

The first nickname I ever went by was Sprite, at the age of 13. I never really had nicknames as a kid, so I had to choose my own for a forum called Zenhex. Back in the day (it's still around, in a somewhat reduced format), it had millions of members, so somehow Anna was taken (who'da thunkit?). As Sprite, I was generally nice but immature - well, duh, I was 13! Didn't stay there for long. It was one of those communities that reacts badly to sweetness and light. I used the same name when I joined the Adrift forum. Again, I was childish, generally good-natured and positive, and I generally got on well with people, which was very nice for me. I became an obsessive poster until I was one of the top posters, then pretty much quit - I still go back occasionally to check how people are doing.

I was given the nickname Anna the Elf at school, also known as Anna the half-elven, 3/4 elven, 7/8 elven (depending on how my school attendance had been lately. No, really.) This was because of Lord of the Rings, of course, when we all had to decide what race we would be - and being fairly tall with long hair, it was fairly obvious!

It was about this time I went into nickname overload, many of which are never used. I became Cookie briefly when my Sprite username wasn't working. I became Kina for any fantasy stories I was writing. I became bomb when my family texted me, at least until they worked predictive text out! This confusion probably contributed to something very strange that started happening. I stopped answering to Anna. People would have so much trouble getting my attention, they could call my name out five times and I wouldn't hear them! You know how you're tuned in to your name? If someone says it, your ears will prick up? That failed for me. So I decided I needed a replacement name, and thus Emma Jay Roshenko was born. I still have that name somewhere in me.

I joined another forum, where I was known as Thiefree - which is also my YouTube username. Thiefree gets on well with almost everyone, ahh isn't that nice. Again, I became one of the top posters, and then more or less quit again because of some inappropriate (and frankly scary) things a forum member said to me.

At the moment, I'm living online as Corsair - a word that means a sort of legally-endorsed pirate. Sounds good to me! I don't know what kind of impression I'm making under this name yet, which is nerve-wracking, but there you go.

That brings you up to date, I believe - sorry if I've forgotten anything, it probably wasn't very interesting. I don't know why I decided you needed to know all that, but it's a bit of a confession. Now you can see my entire reputation, I guess. If you felt so inclined, you could check up on me. ... I mean, don't, that would be creepy, but you know. The thought's there.

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other word would smell as sweet."

--From Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)