Christmas of my dreams - from when I was 7

Sometimes I feel guilty about my wedding vows - I felt that I bent the truth and am not living up to what was said. Specifically 1 Corinthians 13:11. I feel guilty, but not guilty enough to put away childish things.

When I was a kid I always wanted lego for Christmas. At some point the question "aren't you too old for that?" started to get asked more and more. Sadly gifts shifted from toys to clothes and other odds and ends. This year when Laura would ask what I'd like, I'd just say "star wars lego". It's not that I was trying to be a pain, I just didn't really have any other ideas.

I thought that I'd get maybe one fun toy, but no, I got a ton. Even my mom and dad got me lego this year. Crazy.

So, in interest of completeness I'll list what I got:
8017 Darth Vader's TIE Fighter
8039 Venator-class Republic Attack Cruiser
8088 ARC-170 Starfighter
8036 Separatist Shuttle (but I think that I'm going to trade it to my 7 year old nephew and get Y-Wing instead)
a 7" (?) lego man with flashlights in his feet
2 star wars cookbooks (yes, you read that right)

I'm pretty sure most of the gifts that I received this year could easily have been for a 7 year old. In fact, I'm pretty sure this is what I was dreaming about when I was 7. I just had to wait a couple of decades.

My co-worker today was relaying a story about how he was speaking last night to his wife where he was telling me about all my star wars lego stuff. His 6 year old has the same interests as I do and overheard them speaking. The 6 year old then asked "what grade is [Jim] in?". Ya... grade...

If immortality is being forever young, then I think that I've found it, of a sort.

Update: I forgot some other star wars / lego related gifts like a "Obi Wan clone wars lightstaber" which lights up and make sounds when its waved around or hits something, Lego Harry Potter for the PS3, and of course Creationary which we played last night and is awesome. ;-)

My Murse

About six months of the year I wear a big winter coat and it becomes my murse. Sunglasses, pens, old receipts, headphones, work ID, candies, I got them all. It means that my coat is lumpy, not so flattering, and weights the same as a medium sized dog. Do I actually need to carry around all that crap? Of course not, but it's so easy to just keep on adding it to the coat's never ending pockets. As the weather warms up I sometimes wonder if I should get a european carryall, but then usually my good okay barely passable fashion sense kicks in.

Girls are so confusing

My sister is 13 and asked for books for Christmas. She asked for things like sci fi, mystery, and fantasy. I have no idea why she has chosen those categories because last summer I tried to get her to read Harry Potter but she just made fun of it. I think that she got through like 2 pages before giving up. When I was 13 I didn't understand 13 year old girls. I assumed that when I got older I would, but apparently that was a bad assumption.

All the books that I'd recommend to her are sitting on our shelves, so I quickly grabbed a stack that reaches to my knee. The trouble is I don't want to give her a lot of them. Borrow them, sure, but not for classics that I know I'll re-read a couple more times. There's an alternative pile of anthologies that she can have, but things like 1984, Brave New World, anything by Clarke, Asimov, Wells or Verne I'd like to keep. I don't know if that's silly though - will I just format shift all them from the dead tree version?

Having a lot of books around can be comforting, but they take up a lot of space that could be put to better use. Like displaying lego for example.

Live a good life

Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.

- Marcus Aurelius, unsourced quotation

Do as I say, not as I do!

With the recent hubbub over wikileaks releasing documents, I can't believe what some politicians and political advisors are saying, including ones from Canada - "I think Assange should be assassinated, actually". Sure, sure, if you say later "hey, I didn't really mean it!" does it still count?

It just boggles my mind that if the "other" countries were to go through this, any calls for assassination would be condemned by the west. What the hell is wrong with people?? Things like kidnapping people, taking them to a different country, tortured for several months and then released at night on a desolate road in Albania. Why is it okay not to use the law if you think that you have a terrorist on your hands? Disgusting. I won't even get into the campaign of terror that the American government seems to have against their own citizens - a campaign whose purpose seems to be to strip rights and freedoms from not just their own citizens, but the citizens of the rest of the world as well.

If people are breaking the law, put them through due process. If people are doing things that you think that they shouldn't - pass a law that says they shouldn't.

Telling the world that you're the shining example of freedom while not following your own laws is hypocritical at best.