“Complete” by Jaimeson is a pretty good yardstick for garage/drum n’ bass ballads to go by… “Expensive promises I made, all the chances that I take. Never learn to appreciate our time. Lie awake all through the night, memories by candlelight keep them safe locked inside my mind… I heard you calling to me. I know now I am complete. Was lost in the moment, got carried away. Heard the sound of you calling my name. Now I am complete…”

I saw Mars the other night. I made a conscious effort to go and try to see it since it’s the closest that Earth has ever been to Mars in recorded history. It was small, bright and slightly orangey and not big, bright and red as I had expected; {cough} it being the “red planet” and all. It was merely a blip in the distance through my non-telescopic eyes so it would have been really neat to have seen the detail on its surface with a telescope. For some reason that night, the stars seemed much more dull in comparison to Mars. Usually there are a few stars like the North star that outshine the rest and really stick out on the canvas of night, but that night, Mars took centre stage. Like a thief, it surreptitiously stole the limelight from everything else in the sky.

Looking up at the diamonds in the sky, I remembered that there’s a whole other world out there and I wondered what all the other civilisations in the galaxy were up to. I mean, it’s definitely plausible to talk of the existence of other highly evolved life forms in a galaxy far, far away and due to the infinite nature of space, their existence is a bet I’m willing to take. I find it strange to think that for some fateful reason there are no other planets in our solar system that are populated with highly evolved life forms. To think that there are probably other solar systems out there (with maybe more than one sun) with adjacent planets harbouring intelligent life forms. Imagine if that had happened to us and that Mars had been a planet very similar to Earth’s composition and thus populated by equally evolved life forms. It blows my mind to think that way; that every time I look into the sky I’m reminded of how little of the whole actual world my own world revolves around.

There is an untold amount of unprobed space out there that there has statistically got to be other civilisations out there, light years away, who have discovered some sort of hyper drive that enables them to travel at ludicrously high speeds. They’d have launched their own space programme to voyage through space and try to discover other planets containing intelligent life. I wonder when they’ll visit and share their news with us; the people of Earth. I know, it’s stuff of comic book fantasy, but it would be exciting to have visitors who come in peace and are willing to show us the ways of their world and to show us that the technology we dream about is possible. Unfortunately at the same time, any species that were advanced enough to invent such vehicles of space travel would be smart enough to not come anywhere near us. They’d know our military would have them shot down so fast.

They say that when we see a star we see the past, since the light from stars travel many years to reach our eyes. I wonder if there’s such thing as photons that travel faster than time, so that we may have a glimpse of something from the future. The speed of light and time travel has always been something I’d open my ears for, ever since that time in the 80s when Marty sped in a modified Delorean and hit 88 mph. It’s highly probable that in my lifetime there will not be such a thing as time travel. Since this means I will never be able to bend time around me like it’s my plaything, I have to make do with stealing it here and there. What is stealing time, you may ask? It’s effectively multi-tasking the things one wants to do, e.g. where I check out the latest songs in the charts whilst washing my car, tidy my room whilst watching TV, watch a film whilst eating dinner, talk to my mum whilst eating dinner, update my journal whilst eating dinner, etc. The astute ones out there will notice that stealing time often revolves around dinner time.

I went with Yogi to visit Marc in hospital and he’s pretty much back to his old self. I am really pleased that he spent the time with us joking around and poking fun at his choice of reading materials (including a dodgy looking black and white science-fiction book that looked like it had arrived on his lap fresh from the 70s). We could see he even more healthier than the last time 2 weeks ago and couldn’t wait to be discharged, mainly so he could get back on his long neglected computer. We discussed the different holiday ideas for next year and hope that in a year’s time he’ll be able to come on holiday with us. Amongst the obvious reasons why, it would also make buying a wife for him an easier task if he was actually there to pick her out ^_^.

Being tone deaf is a phenomenon that fascinates me to no end and I’m grateful they made an entire show about it: Pop Idol (and it’s spin-offs). The last episode was the last of the audition footage, i.e. the last of the most entertaining part of the entire show. The audition process is the best part because during this time, it’s essentially a programme about bad talent, bad caricatures and pantomime dames. From now on, the show focuses on the hopefuls who can sing, who made it through to the next round. How boring, heheh.

I’m glad that I hear music in the way it was intended and I have no idea what it’s like to be tone deaf, so have always wondered what it must be like. If a person who’s tone deaf sings and thinks that they sound good, then what must they think of people who actually do sing in tune? Relatively, those people should sound absolutely amazing but this is obviously not the way it works. Being tone deaf, listening to a recording of themselves singing out of tune and a recording of another person singing in tune would sound the same to them. Anyone singing would sound like anyone else singing. What a way to live! I count my lucky stars I don’t live in a world like that.

I do on the other hand live in a world where I’m not addicted to the coated/flavoured Macadamia nuts that my mum received from her friends who came over recently on holiday from Hawaii. This is weird in itself, because how can any citizen of Hawaii come to the UK and claim it to be a holiday? The UK can hardly compare with its lack of warm weather, fresh coconuts and hula gals. But back to the nuts. Unfortunately, I’m not addicted to those Macadamias by choice. Those pictured are the only 2 tins left to satisfy any cravings since the other 2 tins have perished in the acid fires of the family’s collective stomachs. My favourite one, the Kona coffee glazed Macadamias were finished extremely quickly by everyone. It’s definitely the family favourite, since the first time I saw it, it was already half empty and about an hour later it was all gone (not my doing). I’m not sure if I can get these nuts at the store here, but they’re great especially if underpriced. They have become another one of the reasons why Maui is in my top 5 for holiday destinations. Just don’t get me started on the warn weather, fresh coconuts and hula gals