Science has a simple answer too, but one which is barricaded by a lexicon of required knowledge. From ideas about atoms and mollecules to forces and the various laws of nature, the knowledge which a scientist may take for granted is the same knowledge that daunts the layperson from pursuing a scientific answer.

The journey to a more accurate truth about life is a long one.  If religion, with its simple comforts and basic comprehensibility, works just fine for the average believer, why would they turn to a more incomprehensible theory about atoms and mutations and fossil records?  Without a lot of further study, the layperson would have to accept many of the basics of science on faith alone.  What would be the benefit?  A lack of certainty about the ultimate meaning of it all?  Exclusion from the club to which the rest of his or her society belongs?  Is it really any wonder that most choose to go with the the social club and the guilt-cleansing service religion provides?

Many Atheists assume that there is some higher purpose to human consciousness other than its own indulgence.  Why the need to slave away at absolute truths when, from an evolutionary perspective, the genetic material passed on by both the religious fanatic and the Atheist are identical. Religions have reduced a complex universe down to simple terms which even a child may understand.  What benefit does one have from a more accurate truth, and does the potential benefit outweigh the cost of learning it?  When Science is able to reduce it’s theories down to simple allegories and fables which can be readily grasped by the young generation and those who use their brains more for looks than for mental function, then it will achieve a status as cherished as religion is for billions of people now. From there, it might inspire billions to seek more and more accurate truths once they realize that anyone can learn anything with discipline and patience.

Those scientists among us who see religion as a burden or blemish on humanity, should realize that they are the enlightened few who have traversed the heights of understanding and so it is they who must bridge the gap with those unable to do so themselves.  Far better to allow people to believe generalizations and simplifications about science than to allow the continuation of the God theory with the angels, devils and other superstitious ideas associated with it.

As an example: does a cat care about the truth of whether you have hostile intentions or not?  Oftentimes no.  It won’t waste time pondering the matter, it will simply run away when you approach.  The truth may be that you are friendly and can provide the cat with a good meal, but as a general rule, the cat has preserved the status quo of it’s species in running away from larger animals, avoiding any potential threat.

What Atheists are asking of the religious is to defy the very laws of evolution that the Atheist holds dear.  Thousands of years of history have shown both safety in numbers and that conservation of effort for the same reward is favored by evolution.  Any species which can achieve the same result (passing on of genetic material to offspring which in turn reaches sexual maturity) with the least amount of effort, will ultimately prosper.

Let me make it clearer:  Religion follows the same epistemological process as science on the most basic of levels.  A phenomena is observed (Life).  A reason is given (God).  If we imagine an island-dweller with no concept of the outside world or of scientific knowledge, the model of a God moving the celestial bodies about, providing rain and sunshine as needed, elegantly fits their basic understanding of the world.  It is a theory in the scientific sense.  With our modern knowledge, it is not difficult to poke holes in this theory or any other simple theory of existence, but usually the adoption of new theories are based on their utility, not their inherent truth.

There are theories and then there are things that work.  What scientists must do better is educate an ignorant populace about the wonders of scientific knowledge.  They must do this not in an arrogant way, but in a sympathetic way.  They must be the translators of knowledge into simple terms, which reveal the real-life practicality of these theories.

The basics of evolution: A bird has three children, all of whom are slightly different to one another. Two of those birds happen to be better at flying away from predators than the other one. The poor flier is eaten and doesn’t have children. The other two have two children. Now we have two separate family tree branches: light feathered and dark feathered offspring. The light-feathered offspring are easily seen by predators and they are eaten before they can reproduce, leaving only dark-feathered birds. This is the process of natural selection, whereby small variances in the children influence their survival and hence their ability to pass on their genetic code. Over millions of years, this results in major changes in life forms, as some variations are better than others at surviving in their environment.

For the religious, knowing the workings of natural processes via science should bring them closer to God, for these are the universal processes by which He operates.  The study of science IS the study of God’s laws!  In my religion, Etheism, knowing science is being closer to knowing the true nature of God.

A while ago, I decided to consider alternatives to Atheism.  I wound up creating my own religion.  I didn’t do it for the chicks, for the fame or for the chance to be crucified.  Nor did I do it because I have grown disillusioned by science.  Science does a great job of explaining the world, our history, the laws of Nature, and even what our near future might look like.  It is essential to our survival and it must continue unhindered, with the full support of humanity.  But what of the big questions that science still cannot answer?  Are we not allowed to wonder why we are here and what our struggle through life is for?  It is for this reason I developed Etheism.

Throughout history, philosophers and preachers have searched for a meaning, some clue as to what it’s all about.  To know this is to know God.  Well, are we getting closer to knowing God yet?

Etheism holds that God is energy.  Using this simple substitution, I dare you to read the ancient biblical texts and see if they don’t make more sense.  What was always most imbecillic about mainstream religion was its view that God was some kind of father figure sitting up in the clouds, listening to what humans do, meddling in their affairs.  Unless you are a young child or a complete and utter moron, this will obviously be insulting to your intelligence.  Defining God as energy allows us to clearly define Him by the natural laws we have for how energy functions in the Universe.  There is still much to learn if we are to become fully enlightened, but at least we are on the way.  As we come to expand our view of the Universe, so too will we expand our definition of God, from petty father figure, to omniscient deity, to Universal constant.

But why define God at all?  There has been, thus far, no evidence to support any theory of a higher consciousness having created any of the phenomena we see around us.  Existence is not evidence of creation.  Even if there had been creation, it must’ve occurred billions of years ago, as our most advanced techniques for dating the age of the earth and of the living creatures who have lived on it indicate.  The absurd idea that the world is but a few thousand years old and that woman was created from man with one of his ribs is childish nonsense which ignores so many facts about the world we have come know.

If you really are religious and are still reading, consider:  God gave you a brain, so why don’t you use it?  You have been given the amazing gift of volition, of choice, of understanding and knowledge.  You are conscious, self-aware and capable of understanding the mysteries of the universe.  You can know why the sun and moon appear to move across the sky, or how people came to look different from each other, some with dark hair and black eyes, others (like me) with fair hair and a fragile relationship with the sun.  God, if He exists, surely doesn’t want you to treat your brain poorly by ignoring the voluminous amounts of evidence supporting the theory of evolution on the one hand, with a book authored by God-knows who, compiled by a bloodthirsty dictator about a prophet none of the authors ever met.

Let me put it another way.  I’m sure that if I put a bag over my head, I could eventually learn how to get on with my life.  But for God’s sake, why not just take off the bag?

Yet, in spite of the horrors committed in its name, religion has been the greatest cause of human population growth in the history of humanity.  The prescription religion has dispensed throughout the Ages has been to “go forth and multiply” and the multitude has obeyed.  Where poverty and religion have combined, the effects have been especially pronounced, generating generation after generation, perpetuating paternalism, all the while passing religion on.  We have assumed that religion was indoctrinated into children early enough that they weren’t able to rationally comprehend it, thereby accepting it as a part of their lives.  But what if it wasn’t just nurture that helped religion to grow and flourish?  What if there was a genetic factor involved?  If there was a genetic link between genes and suceptability to religion, then the religious may well give birth to naturally religious children.  As those who are most religious would quite possibly pass on their genetic material with a greater urgency, the numbers of the religious would be increasing compared to the non-religious.

This may sound like the rantings of a maniac.  “Genetic link to religion?  Such a thing has never been proven!”  And it hasn’t.  But there is good evidence to suggest that there is something in human psychology that gives rise to belief.  You just have to look at it from another angle than religion.

Look at a group of people.  Tasked with a job to do, the group naturally falls into a team of leaders and followers, as each member finds its political place within the group.  We call this politics, but it is actually just an effective way to manage the group dynamic and achieve the result desired.  If a group has too many leaders, it’s focus is diluted and the group can splinter into factions.  Unless some members can switch to a follower mentality, allowing themselves to “follow the leader” as it were, the group will be unfocussed.  Unless other members can lead those other members, giving direction and balance to the group, the group will be doomed.  It seems that, like bees, a person can adopt either role in order to achieve the higher purpose of the group.  Throughout history, those who have been able to follow their leader precisely, by aligning their own goals, dreams and desires with the group have had an uncanny ability to win.  Independence of mind and spirit have traditionally worked well for the leaders of the world, but have fared poorly in group dynamics.  Hell, I have a hard enough time living with this kind of mindset in these supposedly independent and free times.  I would’ve probably been burned on the stake before my 15th birthday, had I been born a couple of thousand years prior.

I think it is not a coincidence that political fervour often mimics religious fervour.  Our tendency to follow has protected us in the past, allowed our groups to function more effectively (though quite often being murderously effective).  It gave humanity strength, yet it is at the same time its weakness.  In the evolution of human thought, it is natural that we would transition from a group to an individualistic mentality.  Trouble is, it seems we are going backwards.  Back in the 4th century BC, Aristotle and Socrates were chatting philosophy, trying to derive the nature of the universe.  Artistotle himself could be said to be the founding father of Science.  Yet, it took almost two thousand years for scientific thought to actually take hold.  Had we not been afflicted with the mind-stunting ignorance of religion for centuries, where might we be now.

I’m pretty sure we’d have flying cars.  Leonardo da Vinci would have invented them for sure.

I created Etheism in the hope of creating, not another closed dogmatic system of belief, but an evolving, inclusive vision of a universe which would one day welcome us into its arms.  As our technology and our knowledge increase, as we come to learn more and more secrets of this amazing universe, we may well give birth to creations which allow us to explore the cosmos (or at the very least fly to work).  Who knows what intelligence we may find, given the means of conducting a more thorough search.  But even if we remain alone in the universe, we will advance or die together.  Our own small roles in continuing the delicate spark of life will remain, even after the circumstances of our birth, death and all that happened in between fades into eternity.

Etheism is a celebration of Life.  A unifier, not a divider.  It is a religion which is pro-science, pro-life AND pro-choice, pro-rational individual and pro-understanding.  It is inclusive.  If you’re alive, you can join.  Those who we disagree with, we feel compassion toward, never hatred.  We feel connected to the universe and relish the joys of life.  We understand that God may fill our bodies and world around us, but this universe is a self-determined one.  We live and die by our own choices.  There is no supernatural force, guiding the outcome.  We are not disappointed by this, as we understand that the natural world is so full of wonderful and amazing things that there is simply no need for the supernatural.  As for the purpose of humankind, perhaps one day it will achieve harmony.  That is our goal.  When we learn to form a synnergy with our natural world, we might discover a higher form of existence, leading to still other higher and higher forms.

The answers to all of our questions are right there in the puzzle we call life.  It’s up to us to solve it.

I suppose to really appreciate something like the iPhone, you have to have a basis of comparison. I can’t imagine how this technology is blowing my parents’ minds, considering that when they were young, radio was a big deal. Old people must be really buzzed to be living in the future. I think that I’ll be buzzed when I get there too! But I feel like I already am there in a way. Walking around, reading articles off the internet, checking out rental properties, finding restaurants to eat at or the next train times, I rarely have to wait more than 20 seconds to get the information I need. All, just with my thumb. It’s friggin’ fantastic!

And so, I take another step toward Apple.

See, I wanted to be a PC guy. I believed in the open market of applications battling it out for supremacy. There is so much flexibility in a PC with customizations and options and profiles. Not only that, but you can build them yourself. It’s just like I used to do when I was a kid with building blocks, only now those blocks help me to get porn. PCs were a blank slate and you built from the ground up. That is, from Windows up. And that is the problem with PCs. Microsoft is a company built by nerds, who still make programs with the nerd mindset. The nerd mindset is the idea that more information and options are always better. What the nerd doesn’t see is that people usually tend to prefer to minimize options where possible so as to conserve energy. With Windows it has always been a case of figuring out verbose messages and having to learn about the nuts and bolts of the system. Geeks love to learn stuff, and they assume that everyone else wants to do that too.

Technology, to me, makes the most sense when it augments my life, rather than disrupts it. The more I have to think about how to do something, the less I’m thinking about what I want to do. Technology is something which should work for me rather than the other way around. Apple seem to get this and create products that are intuitive and simple to use. They let your mind wander and not be tied down by process.

It’s almost like two personalities. On the one hand, I’m a bit of a geek myself and so I love to build and customize. I have dreams of creating a huge desktop PC with a RAID-5 disk array and a ridiculously large amount of memory. Then I use my iPhone again and dream of owning a machine that would just do the simple stuff without requiring a lot of brain effort. I don’t want to be searching through menus or understanding the concepts of Network management. I want to send my damn file from here to there, OK? Can’t a computer just do it without being told twice, thrice, having it’s firewall policies analyzed and it’s properties manipulated? So far, my impression of Apple is that things are simple and they just work first time. I can dig that, I really can.

Apple are in control of the whole experience. They sell the hardware and the software as an identity. Windows is just an operating system. It appears on many different devices and so it loses its identity. So many different machines leads to so many problems and issues due to the complexity of it all. Plus, their geeky ways are dull.

The beauty of the current level of technology is that I can have my cake and eat it too in this instance. Since Apple released Boot Camp whereby I can run Windows on a Mac, I can dual boot. Windows will be great in the corporate world as I take life very seriously as an office worker. Then, when I get home and fire up the Buddha, I can switch to the cool interface of my Mac, running OS Snow Leopard, with stuff just working all the time and requiring minimal effort from me.

I’ll be able to relax and spend more time enjoying the beauty of the world. So what I’m really trying to say is that I’m not a mac guy or a pc guy. I’m a technology guy who cares about form AND function. Right now, it just happens that the company with the best product just happens to be the most trendy.

Let’s just call that a perk.

Until a more awesome device than the iPhone comes put, I’ll be here tapping my blog out with my thumbs, while listening to Talib Kweli and waiting for my eBay order to arrive.

Yet, as that flower grew taller and taller, she found the thicket above her, pushing down on her, restricting her growth.  She struggled to push through, but each time, the thicket seemed just as dense as before, so that finally, after much effort, she gave up.  Her stem started to bend as she leaned forward to find another path to the rays of sunshine she so desperately needed to live.  Her lean diminished her beauty, but not enough to prevent her bloom showering the forest floor, giving her a child, which began its life nearby.  She accepted her place in life and tended to her child’s safety and nutrition.

One of these children blossomed into a strong, bright flower and outgrew all his siblings.  From time to time, his mother would remind him that he could not grow forever, that one day he would reach the thicket, upon which he would have to stop.  Here, she would indicate the stoop in her stem, the crinkle in her leaves.  He saw his mother from a different angle, though.  He saw that were she to push a little harder, she might break through the thicket branches, which were only a few inches thick.  With a few pushes in the right places, she might push them aside forever and grow to her full height.

But try as he might to encourage her, she had long ago believed it to be impossible and had grown forward too far.  And this was how she died in the end, bent over and crippled.  Her child vowed not to repeat her mistake – he would push through any branches to reach the sun that stood in his way.  Unknown to him, he grew under a large branch of a tree above.  As he grew taller and taller, he found the branch above him, pushing down on him, restricting his growth.  Though he pushed, the branch seemed impervious to all of his efforts against it.  He looks upon the wasting shell of his mother, curled over and hunched with new eyes.  He saw her struggle in his.

Yet in that recognition, he realized that in her struggle had been a solution, one which she had given up the search for.  Seeing how she died, he decided it would be better for him to struggle and try all his life, than be bent over and only live half a life.  So he pushes some more.  He meets a girl flower, who is swept up in his vision.  While all the flowers around her had accepted their limitations, he had shown a resolve she had never seen.  Together, they pushed against the heavy branch.  The days and weeks went by and each day they pushed harder.  Though lightning did strike other trees in the area, it had not struck this one.  Together, they looked at each other and realized they might spend their whole lives to no avail.

The girl was the first to break, weeping bitter tears of frustration.  The boy stopped pushing for a moment and grew that little bit closer to her, that he may lend her comfort.  She, feeling safer in his presence, grew that bit closer to him.  They put aside the branch and for the first time in so many days, enjoyed their time together.  They opened their petals to the light from the suns rays that little bit more, stretched their leaves and allowed the summer rains to wash them clean.  Bees danced in their blossom, sending messages back and forth between each other all day.  And together, they grew closer.

One day they were enjoying the gentle push of the breeze while soaking in the light when the girl flower looked over her head.  There was no branch!  She alerted the boy who looked up to see a radiant blue sky staring back at him.  As time had passed and their love had blossomed, they had grown closer to each other and away from the branch that had been above them.  They looked at each other and saw their bright future in the sun together.

A couple and their son happen by the flowers one day, and stop when the wife notices the two flowers which had so romantically grown around one another.
”Oh look at these flowers!” she remarked, clasping her hands to her face.  “They are in love, just like mommy and daddy.”

The child rolled his eyes and ran to the tree nearby to climb it.  He had gone no higher than the first branch, the branch that had troubled the flowers for so long, when his father instructed him to go no higher.  The boy was quick to complain.
”But Dad, I can climb to the top!”
”Those branches are not safe!” his father said.
”They are too!” replied the boy.
This exchange continued for a while until, after a spirited point, the boy’s weight broke the branch and both tumbled to the ground, missing the flowers by inches.  The father, feeling vindicated, repeated his point to the child and promptly comforted the boy, feeling the lesson had been learnt.  But as the boy nursed the pain in his backside, he felt the urge to right the wrong this tree had done him and to one day return to climb to the top.

The mother, on the other hand, had been greatly concerned as the branch narrowly missed the flowers she had been marveling at.  She threw a look of scorn toward him.
”You nearly damaged these beautiful flowers, please be more careful!”
The child shrugged, his face still creased in pain.
”They’re just flowers.”
”They’re not just flowers, they’re flowers in love,” she spoke to him slowly.  “And you must always protect true love.”
For the second time, the child rolled his eyes, while the father’s widened.  An idea had struck him.  After his wife walked the child ahead, he ripped up the entwined flowers from the ground and placed them in his coat.  As his wife seemed to love the flowers so much, she would surely appreciate being given them as a gift, he thought merrily as he returned to his family.  He was, then, quite surprised when his wife’s reaction was one of anger.  It seemed to him there was no pleasing some women.

And as the flowers felt their world uprooted and life slip slowly away from them, they stared at each other, remembering the life they had shared, hoping their children would find their own version of destiny and to not be defeated by the struggle.

And once again the wife was moved by the flowers’ gentle grace, even in death.  Seeing the love they shared reminded her of the love she and her husband had shared those many years.  She forgave him his transgression and smiled.  The husband, puzzling at the mysterious currents of his wife’s mood, was relieved to be back in the favor of such a beautiful, complex creature.  He stood slightly taller that day and all the days after that, and together, they grew closer.

Had I known that while making me feel perkier in the morning, you were elevating my cortisol levels I might not have let you into my life.  But there you were, whispering sweet nothings in my ear, wafting your delicious smell up my nostrils and all the while stimulating my adrenal gland, causing all kinds of havoc.

What’s that you say?  You were just messing around?  It was harmless?  Ha!  Stop lying to me.  I’m so tired of your seductive lies.  I know what you were up to now.  The wool has been pulled from my eyes and I’ll have no part of  your shenanigans any more!  Cortisol isn’t just some harmless fun.  Blood pressure, fertility issues, memory.  Oh you have some nasty friends, Coffee.

I knew something was wrong when I saw Fat.  At first, I didn’t really know why it had shown up.  I didn’t invite it to the party and quite frankly I usually don’t allow those types in.  I run, I swim, I keep fit.  But everywhere I went, there was Fat, still hanging around like it knew me.  I knew for sure that I hadn’t invited it myself, so I started asking around.  Had someone else let it in while I wasn’t looking?  I did a little further digging and it all became clear to me.  While my good friend Coffee was keeping me happy and distracted, a whole host of undesirable characters were slipping in the back door.

If not for the fat, I may not have noticed.  But it’s always sitting there on my stomach like an ugly fat blob, staring at me and grunting “What?”  When the two of you get together that fat bastard seems even more content, swelling up and jiggling all over the place.  If it was just you and me, I might be able to stomach the other issues, such decalcifying my bones, thinning my skin and toxifying my brain.  But you just had to fatten me up.  And if there’s one thing to spoil a good substance party, it’s a fat bastard at the center of it who JUST WON’T LEAVE.

So goodbye Coffee.  I’ll admit, it was fun while it lasted.  But now that I know what you’ve been up to, well, it just leaves a bitter taste.

Refs:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1608/is_9_19/ai_106652961/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortisol#Factors_affecting_cortisol_levels
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2249754/?tool=pmcentrez
Image: http://theobservationsubway.blogspot.com/2008/08/at-coffee-shop.html

Every artist must pass through both challenges. How accurate they can be at then displaying the result depends on their technical skills. But technical skills will not suffice unless the artist has revealed something of our human potential. Nobody would be pleased if, after all the buildup, the joke your friend has been telling you for the past hour has a lousy punchline. The artist must use their technical skills to reveal an unknown truth or to illuminate a known one. This is the artist’s struggle.

Fans of The Office will, at one point in their lives, have had a debate with another fan about which version of the show is better, the original UK production starring it’s creator, Ricky Gervais, or it’s American off-spring starring the rubber-faced and very talented Steve Carell.  The correct answer is of course the UK one, though having admitted that one can then comfortably admit to finding the US version also good.  Gervais’ David Brent was a sharper critique of the boss everyone knows who thinks he knows everything.  Carell’s performance of Michael Scott is much more comical and warm, a jester instead of a jerk.  To like the US version of The Office is to seem shallow, as though avoiding the confronting nature of the UK version’s dark comedy.

I completely disagree.  Why?  Because Ricky Gervais is a very ordinary actor who has all the subtlety of a brick.

One day, historians will unearth records from the 21st century and stumble across a bunch of DVDs starring people like Ricky Gervais and Seth Rogen and be genuinely perplexed at how these two could be in so many movies.  How did so much time elapse before humanity was able to collectively pull itself out of it’s slumber and get them off camera?

It’s not that Gervais is not brilliant in his own way.  He has a knack for finding something funny and exploiting it.  Just ask Karl Pilkington.  But this skill in coming across funny ideas or things has unfortunately led to him acting those out for us, when someone else would do a far better job.  Ricky Gervais is David Brent.  He’s the boss who doesn’t know when to back off.  Sure, his comic sense is far better.  But for all intents and purposes he is the arrogant, self-important jerk who always insists that he is more brilliant than anyone else in the room.  He seems to have half of Hollywood convinced, as they show up in cameo after cameo, from Edward Norton to Phillip Seymour Hoffman.  They are the shining jewels of interest in this movie, actors whose job it is to act.  The tragedy is that they surround a not very likable writer/director whose own ego won’t let anyone else be the star.

The idea of this movie, if it isn’t already blindingly obvious, is that the movie takes place in a world where people cannot lie.  Not cannot as in forbidden, but cannot as in inconceivable.  Even though this concept is not difficult to grasp and is already spelled out in the title, it is further explained in a tedious opening narration, full of ad-lib about waiting for the credits to finish, then a thorough drilling of what the movie was about and what the viewer should “look out for”.  Not only is it a painfully tedious and lazy way to introduce a movie, but it’s also arrogant and smug at the same time.   It was the kind of thing that belonged on the DVD extras for the intellectually impaired, not as actual introduction to a movie.  ”But wait!” someone cries.  ”Don’t you see?”  He’s doing that to show us what a life without lies would be like.  He’s being clever.  Yes, and if your IQ is less than 90 I’m sure it was very useful.

Aside from his general unsuitability for leading man, the problem with Gervais’ everyman is that he’s just not very likable.  In Lying, he plays Mark, a tubby writer who lives a relatively shitty life, gets no respect and is informed of these truths constantly, ad nauseam throughout the entire movie.  If Ricky Gervais relishes in flaunting conventions, then perhaps he has been successful.  The usual plot of a romantic comedy is to portray a lovable loser who finally finds courage in order to get the girl.  In this movie, the loser is not lovable.  He’s just a loser.  He loses, we shrug.  He wins, we shrug.  There is a certain fascinating in watching a fly try to exit an open door.  It’s a similar feeling watching a lying, miserable, fat sack of shit try to bag a beautiful girl, yet by the end of the movie you are almost gunning for Rob Lowe because damn he’s just so good looking!

I may be wrong about Ricky Gervais.  There may be a whole other way of seeing this movie.  There is, for example, the genuine comedy of the concept of a world in which people just say what’s on their minds.  From the waiter who tries to hit on the date, to the frank discussions of the chances of getting to home base.  There’s also the satirical take on religion, though again the trademark Gervais brick of subtlety spoils a lot of the satire it sets up.  But maybe this is more than a simple romantic comedy.  Maybe this is an autobiography.

Gervais, a pudgy, uninteresting little man has found a way to make us pay attention to him.  It’s all based on a lie and this movie is his confession.  Perhaps his brilliance is in convincing Hollywood’s A-list to join in his charade, which helps to convince everyone else that he really does deserve to be there in the spotlight.  But without the success of Steve Carell in the US office, without the huge names that appeared every week in Extras, without Steve Merchant’s sharp wit or Karl Pilkington’s ravings, there wouldn’t be much reason to watch Ricky Gervais.

But that’s all beside the point.  He has recruited a plethora of famous and funny people who, with their very presence lend Gervais a kind of charm.  It may not last for very much longer, but it worked for this movie, if only just.

***

To this date, Keith and I have put out two full episodes of International and a further two mini-episodes called Polling Data and Ebay.  Here they are, in the full glory of their chronological order.

The Unshow International 1

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The Unshow International 2

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The Unshow: Polling Data

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The Unshow: Ebay

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” I miss the streets of Seoul, the bustle, the cars everywhere, the awesome subway, morning Dunkin Donuts runs, partying hard in Hongdae and Itaewon, Pita Time, motel rooms, orange-flooded midnight streets, walking to the Kim Bap Nara in the wee hours of the morning and ordering don cass, crazy ajoshis, kids staring at my whiteness, playing darts in Seoul Pub, egg and cheese Sally, shopping at 3am in Dongdaemun, driving on the right, galbi wrapped up with kim chi in a lettuce leaf, hanging with my korean ‘brother’ and talking about life until morning, cheap taxis, high-speed internet, being told my Korean is good when it sooo isn’t, my adorable student Hae Ri, Korean people and how they act the same wherever you go, making strange videos with Keith, my boys, my girls, and waking up any time and stepping out into a city that never seems to really sleep. It’s all a dream now.”

Now here I sit in Australia, thinking about my Korea far away over the seas.  Another world, another life currently continuing while I sit in a different reality.

But this time it is different, I think.  After years of not being able to do what I wanted, I was shocked suddenly to be back in a country where my possibilities weren’t limited to being a teacher or a company’s resident foreigner.  As I feel my mind opening up to the possibilities I see the future as being very different from the past.  Something clicked.  So while on the surface it may seem like the circle repeats, on the inside it is a whole new reality.

Solution: After Googling, doodling and racking my brain, I finally just thought like a computer.  As a result, I’m typing away again.

This Toshiba Satellite M200 has been pretty good until now.  I’ve had it for almost 2 years and apart from overheating on warm days, it’s been a pretty solid machine.  I do lots of video editing on it and the speed at which it renders is quite impressive for a tiny laptop.

However, impressed I was not when, during a long night of tapping out a script, my battery died.  It made a feeble attempt to go to sleep just prior to this, but as the battery gave out it’s last squirt of power, Windows wrote about all the lovely things I had been typing and how it wanted to remember them later, but then all went black.

My natural recourse was to plug in the power.  That I did.  I saw a flash screen for Phoenix Labs, as one might see while the computer wakes up.  No boot options or suggestions to hit the Delete key.  Then a black screen, a flashing cursor and nothing happening in the hard drive department.  No worries, I thought.  Corrupted restore file is the problem.  I’ll just shut off the power and hold the button a really long time.  This is how I show my laptop I really mean business.

After that didn’t work, I still wasn’t worried.  I’ll take out the battery.  If things get serious and button pushing doesn’t work, start the strategic withdrawal phase.  Know that this phase, once started, could lead to the computer’s destruction, as each increasingly integral component is taken out and yet the game goes on.  Battery comes out easily.  Goes back in seconds later.  There, the hardware will be power starved, not remember anything and the system will reboot from scratch.  But after another boot, there is that damn black screen and cursor, blinking at me as though taunting me.  Off, on, off, on, you don’t treat me well… on, off, on, off,  you suck at computers.

Here was I, trying to work this out in a civilized way.  I push a button here, I push a button there, computer works.  We don’t have to create a scene.  We don’t want anyone to get hurt.  But you made me pull out your battery because you still didn’t work after I had tried so hard to be polite.  And now we’ve already crossed over to the dark side.  Now I have a taste for this game of torture.  What will it take for you to work for me?

I took out, then replaced the RAM.  Blink, blink, ha, ha.
I pulled out the hard drive, plugged it back in.  No, no, blinked the screen.
I inserted said hard drive into a portable unit and checked to see it was working.  All was well.
I racked the internet, which told me to hold the power button for a minute, run boot disks (obviously no boot menu so can’t boot), change Windows power options (hello, not booting!) or update my BIOS.  The cursor actually found the last one quite amusing.  Blink, blink, go ahead and try, it said.

I have no idea where the nearest Toshiba shop is.  I really didn’t want to have to find out.  I had to come up with another solution.  I spend a good part of my day sitting in front of my computer and if that vast stretch of time is gone I might start reading books or doing something productive.  As you can see, I desperately needed a solution.

Toshiba laptop, turns on.  What happens?  What would I do if I were that laptop.  The first thing I do of a morning is check to see that I’ve got all my bits.  Legs, arms, face, dick, balls, OK.  It really is all a man needs to be a man.  Everything else is extraneous.  Sure, I’ll put a T-shirt on and may even wear pants, but first I’m checking to make sure I have some legs to put in those pants.  So, if I’m a computer waking up from a deep sleep, I think I’ll be checking to see that my parts are all cool.  If they are, then move on to the hard disk boot sequence and let Windows do the rest.

I’m going to pause here to mention that my approach to problem solving my computer is to FBM.  First blame Microsoft.  There’s no passion there.  It’s all for show.  I guess companies are a lot like their founders.  In this case, bland.  That’s how I see Microsoft.  I’m going to have a little rant about my phone with its Microsoft Windows Mobile operating system in the very near future, I can feel it.  When a problem arises, I assume that it’s a Windows fault.  For example, when going to sleep, have a tag to say not complete.  When the session saving has finished, change that tag to finished. When the system boots up, if session saving tag reads finished, restore it.  If it reads not finished, do a fresh boot.  Simple.

So in my mind, it’s the point after the system check that everything goes wrong.  So I try to make the security check fail.  I pull out the hard disk again, but this time leave it out.  I turn on the computer.  The now-familiar Phoenix logo flashes, the little blue bar down the bottom fills, then…

Black screen, flashing cursor.  Its blinks seem slower this time, as though it was an effort to blink them out.  It says, “you got me”.  Suddenly, a bunch of white writing appears.  Hardware failure!  Blah, blah, blah!  I reset the computer, plug in the hard drive and voila! We’re back to standard boot-up.

The whole process from start to finish took almost 2 days.   I am most unsettled when Google can’t solve my problems.  It has become like a big brother to me and when it doesn’t come through, I’m left vulnerable, having to use my own brain for a change.  But my brain proved that it is still working and that it, with the help of a little Microsoft distrust, could still save me from a life of productivity.