ST Frontier Fleet: Personal Logs

Ever since I locked myself out of Wikipedia, I seem to be getting on better with my thesis. I've also cut back on my FF posting, which has helped. And today, I finally finished the first draft of the first of the three parts of my thesis! Yay, a milestone! I've completed the huge chunk on identity issues in the pre-colonial Pacific - close to 270 pages, including indigenous socio-political and identity systems, and the impact of pre-colonial White settlers (merchants, missionary, and so on). The differences between the stateless societies of Melanesia and Australia, and the establishment of the Kingdom of Tonga by Taufa'ahau, not forgetting the messy condition of 19th century Samoa...

Now I can finally move on the the colonial era, and to the changes it brought. Starting with why Britain, which was a reluctant coloniser, ended up with a bigger colonial empire in the Pacific than the three eager colonial powers (France, Germany and the United States) which were, at that time, snapping up as many colonies as they could.

Well I was once, many years ago, in the heady days of my youth. With two friends, I made a video in which one friend and I battle it out in a breathtaking, terrifying lightsabre duel, complete with dazzling special effects and at least two lines of dialogue.

The video lasts 21 seconds. It took 5 hours to make.

I'm the guy in the ridiculous costume with a face you can't really see, with the red lightsabre.

This scene was initially supposed to be part of a longer film, which would have included droids (i.e., hoovers meants to be droids), and holographic aliens (me in a mask with a filter effect). We never got round to doing more than those 21 seconds, though.

The full video is now available on my Facebook page, here.

A few weeks ago, my father surprised me by saying he wanted to watch a Harry Potter film.

That is absolutely not like my father, which goes to show, I suppose, that anyone can still surprise you.

My mother and sister have seen all the films (and I think my mum has read the books), but I had not read or seen any of them. So I settled down to watch the first four with my dad (not in one go, of course). I was unimpressed at the very beginning. Harry's foster family are one-dimensional, flat stereotypes who are simply impossible to accept, no matter how much suspension of disbelief you try to conjure up (no pun intended).

But then it gets better. A lot better. And I've had to admit that it's actually very good. (With one caveat nonetheless: Why on Earth did Draco Malfoy suddenly turn in a wimp in the third film?)

Anyway, for some obscure reason, I decided to try the sorting hat on myself. I saw myself as being closest to the Ravenclaw House, and three seperate online "quizzes" all confirmed it. Not only that, but they put me in the order I expected: Ravenclaw first, Hufflepuff a close second, Gryffindoor third, and Slytherin last.

So what are YOU?

In an endeavour to get more work done per day, I've been trying to cut down on time-wasters. I've left NationStates (almost completely), and all FF dutystations other than the Cal. I also stay away from Facebook. And Second Life. I've succeeded in staying off that. Now I also need to avoid editing Wikipedia too much. Hopefully putting this in writing will help accomplish that: NO MORE EDITING WIKIPEDIA for at least a week.

There. We'll see what happens.