why opinion fights are uncool and tea is brilliant

About four months ago I finished a photo-a-day-for-a-year project that took me fifteen months. You can find this project here if you so desire. I quite enjoyed it, though it was hard, and for the most part my photography skills turned out to be below what I hoped for. Still, it made me view the world slightly differently, and that can be a good thing. And it coincided with Syl and I starting a vintage camera collection; these two are from a Falcon pocket camera we restored. Syl worked on the bellows and the finish, while I got the shutter working and opened the camera mid-roll to give it that old-timey feel. I'm such a n00b.

I enjoy writing, but I don't do much of it. So I'm going to do a similar thing. I'll write a bit each day for a week, and see how it goes.

Yesterday I finally finished playing Portal 2. I say "finally," not because it took me a long time to play it, but because I just didn't start playing it for months after I got it. Brilliant game, should have played it sooner. I thought the ending credits song was a bit weaker than in Portal, but since "Still Alive" was sheer brilliance I think I'll let it slide. The Portal games have such an excellent mix of fun, puzzles, dry wit and satire. Yep, quite enjoyed it.

Watched the first episode of Dollhouse on TV tonight. Thought it started a bit weakly, but it drew me in over the course of the episode. Looks like another piece of Joss Whedon magic, just a bit more serious.

And here's a thing I'm noticing: I have very little to write about here. I've been thinking about doing this lately, and going over old blog posts, and it looks like I used to care about things in general a lot more than I do now. Maybe it was when I realised that the people who engage in debates on internet comment streams aren't actually solving anything... there's something singularly unappealing about opinions thrown in a public arena like armed robots in a ring. It's not that I don't care about stuff, but that I can't be bothered engaging in arguments like that. They contribute nothing to human intelligence or reason because nobody listens, everybody shouts, and the sum total is a hundred million little balls of interconnected anger strewn around the globe. So I really don't want to write about my opinions, or start arguments, or talk to the intarwebs about deep and intellectual topics. Not with anger anyways, and not without respect, smiles, tea and civility.

So I think, each day, I'm going to share something happy. A happy thought. And today, my happy thought shall be:

Tea.

Tea is brilliant stuff. I've been having a lot of tea lately, a lot more than usual, because for one reason or another I've not been drinking as much coffee as I normally would. I have discovered that English Breakfast Tea is actually The Bees Knees. It's mild enough that weak little me can drink it black and unsweetened; it's also brilliant with honey and lemon. I like it. Tea is definitely a feel-good drink. It's exceptionally good at warming the cockles of one's heart on soggy winter days, particularly when taken with bara brith and good company (thanks Syl). In fact, I think I may get myself another cup right now and curl up with a book.