The Importance of Being Stupid.

People make stupid choices every day. From really minor ones like, the time you ate the yogurt that was so old it actually tried to avoid the spoon. To kind of middle of the road ones like, deciding on the spur of the moment to stick what we will call an, appendage, in to the hose on a vacuum cleaner. Then turning the suction WAY up.  And then there are those stupid decisions which sometimes go on to become almost legendary.  After all just look at all those European leaders who decided, against all logic to get involved in a land war in Asia.

But leaving aside huge groaning tomes of military blunders, and leaving aside the vast terabytes of YouTube footage of people being incredibly stupid, seemingly stupid acts are often the most important for humanity.

When the first human left Africa for Europe it might well have seemed a really dumb idea to those who stayed behind.  Or what about the first person who climbed up on a horse.  Everyone on the ground that day, must have just been waiting for his foolish skull to be caved in by a well placed hoof.  Randomly putting growing things into your mouth must have killed a lot of early humans, but we did end up with a nicely varied diet due to their experimentation.

I often wonder about the first person to eat a coconut.  I mean come on, he had to have been dared to do it. I bet he even ended up with a really nasty dose of the trots, after he drank too much of the milk.

Organised religion too is a form of mass stupidity.  You willingly hand over control of vast swathes of your life, to the mutterings of some old guy who claims to have a hotline to the divine.  Yet organised religion, for all its inherent problems and even evils, is one of the most potent forces in any modern civilisation.  A force which had to have been instrumental in the forging of the earliest civilisations.

Stupidity is one factor that has shaped the human race as it stands today.  Yet it’s the very people who do the things regular societies name crazy, nutty, dare I say “stupid”, who push us forward.  They’re the people who trek across an arctic wilderness or sail around the world, solo.  Thus inspiring, the less adventurous members of our species, to step even just a little outside of their comfort zone.  It’s the people who willingly put themselves into little fragile metal craft to then ride a tail of fire into the heavens, who will be the ones to open up new vistas for exploration and colonisation.

Stupidity is important.  But it has to be a stupidity with structure and a well-intentioned guiding thought behind it.  Otherwise you’re just sticking, let’s call it an appendage, into a light fitting and throwing the switch.

So in honour of those brave few, who dare to stick their appendages into the wrong place and for the amusement of everyone else, I leave you with the immortal words of Weird Al Yankovic.  “Dare to be Stupid.”

A review of future events – the royal wedding.

This being my review day, I of course had to write a review.  So I thought why not do something unique, a review of future history, my experience of the royal wedding.

Now let’s face  it people, no other nation on Earth does unnecessarily over the top, pomp and circumstance like the British. That being the case I of course will be having a very special royal wedding day.

It will begin with the arrival at approximately 8am of a young child.

After saying a far too early “hello” to the child, I will most likely roll over and grab another 40 winks.  These 40 winks will probably include a snoring dog on the bed, said child kicking me in the back with feet like blocks of ice and my partner complaining loudly about the power point on the electric blanket digging into her back.

About 11am I will roll out of bed, turn on the telly and find a channel which is not going on about the royal wedding.  Most likely this will have to be Discovery or Dave, but documentaries about Nazi’s or reruns of Top Gear are always welcome.

After finishing the housework, my breakfast and playing with the invading child, a little gaming might be in order.  So the digital crack that is Minecraft will be loaded and an hour of punching cows, chickens and pigs will ensue, to the delighted squeals of a worryingly digitally sadistic little girl.

After a light lunch, once more avoiding anything that mentions the royal wedding, perhaps a run out to her cousin will happen.  Her cousin has built the most delicious house in a nearby townland, so while the child can play with another child, the adults will nose around all the fixtures and fittings again.  This leading to much jealousy and an overwhelming need for large quantities of vodka.

At about 6pm the child will be taken home, followed down the road by relieved sighs.

By the time the child has left the royal wedding will be past history, however carelessly switching the television on for the remainder of the day might still result in being blinded by pomp and mentally scarred by circumstance.  So viewing of Clash of the Titans, The Omen, the entire Resident Evil collection and perhaps even Bubbahotep will most like being the order of the day.

So there you have in a nutshell my royal wedding experience.  Filled with fun, frolics, vodka and zombies.  Not to mention a young girl asking over and over “where’s my mommy?”

The calls for an end to nuclear power.

I can still clearly remember the day I first heard the name, Chernobyl.  It was the day that the nuclear power plant situated there, played host to the worlds worst nuclear disaster.  That was 25 years ago, but since that day the whole world, has lived under the shadow of it all happening again.  Then it did, making the names Chernobyl and Fukushima synonymous with the dangers of nuclear power generation.

Today marks that 25th anniversary of Chernobyl.  In many places within mainland Europe, protests were held in the hopes of winding down Europe’s nuclear energy.

While the good intentions of the people at these protests are not in question, their reasoning needs to be intensely questioned.  After all without nuclear power, what will pick up the new strain on each of their country’s power grids?

As a species we need to face certain facts.  Green energy is a non-runner right now.  Wind turbines only work when there is actually wind.  Most tidal generators are considered prohibitively expensive.  Solar power, while becoming more plausible as better solar cells are developed, is still a long way from being more than a minor consideration.  Green energy might, one day be able to take over a significant part of our planets power needs, but not without massive investment.

Oil and natural gas are running out.  They are a finite resource which is only becoming more and more expensive.  That expense is going to be passed on to the customers of the various power companies.  I have in the past spoken about a possible alternative, but again it will require immense investment of both money and political will.

So without nuclear power in a relatively short period of time, Earth could find itself put back into a dark age.

No-one can deny that nuclear power carries its own set of dangers.  There is however a large “but” attached to that.  But we exclusively use nuclear fission.  The potential for a much safer alternative does exist, nuclear fusion.  And while it too would require large amounts of cash to make it viable, much of the scientific development has already been done.  Fusion is not science fiction, every sunny day you’re enjoying the fruits of nuclear fusion, in the form of the sun.  Labs across the world have achieved fusion on many occasions, they now simply need the funding to make it sustainable and efficient.

Protesting against nuclear power has never gone out of fashion.  It probably never will.  But unless those protesting either have a workable safer alternative, or will support one even if it has got the word “nuclear”attached to it, they need to shut up.  Because if they do manage to end the use of nuclear power, those are the very same people who will be protesting the accelerated price rises on electricity, heating oil, heating gas, petrol, diesel and all the other essentials of our civilisation.

Nuclear power isn’t evil.  But it does need better planning or better still a new safer form.  So I say if you want to protest and wave a placard, protest in favour of research spending into fusion.  Then you can tell your grandkids about how you spoke out for sustainable, cheap energy and help to usher in a more stable future for them.

And so I am left with an unpleasant question, about the EU.

More years ago than I like to think about, I asked a German exchange student how he felt about Germany in the post World Wars Europe.  Then I was too young to realise how potentially insensitive a question that is.  Regardless he answered and that answer turned me into an instant lifelong supporter of the European project.

A fifteen year old German exchange student, in halting english, rather than answering my question directly explained that the EU did one thing.  It stopped future European wars.  I’ve never learned if that answer was a part of German rote learning or a heartfelt belief, but either way it opened my mind in a way that few things have since.   He was right, since the EU was formed there have been no wars between EU states.  Or at least there have been no hot wars.  A hot war being defined as, any confrontation where one or both sides make use of armed military might.

I was convinced there and then.  Later as I grew up and educated myself in the ways of the world, I only became more convinced that the EU held significant potential as a keeper of the European peace.   Even more I have come to believe that there is a need for another large political block to counter China and America.  To provide a third voice, a voice which I hope might avert disaster in the future.  After all let us never forget that as a planet, we’re only ever really one bad tequila away from a global military catastrophe from which humanity and perhaps even the planet itself would probably never recover.

I still believe that Europe needs a common defence policy, especially if we start to add near-east countries such as Turkey to our membership.  I absolutely believe that free travel and the right to work in any EU state is a boon to our combined civilisation.

Despite all this lately I have however been weighed down by one very unpleasant question.

Is the European Union unknowingly already in a state of civil war?

Ok yes I do know that the word “civil” is not wholly accurate, but with this question I feel we must view Europe as a single entity rather than as an alliance of separate nations.  But that quibble aside, if we were to view the EU as something akin to the pre-civil war USA could we be viewed as being at  each others throats?

Diplomacy is sometimes described as “war continued by another means.”  Might that not also be true of international economics?  With reports starting to trickle in to the public arena of the European Central Bank, having possibly instigated a near run on the Irish banking sector, I am beginning to wonder. If Ireland were someone hanging by their fingertips from the edge of  a cliff, France and Germany bullying our representatives in what I hope will be a vain attempt to force a raise in our corporation tax, is rather like someone walking up and stamping on the cliff hangers fingers.  We can only wonder about what is happening between the great European financial powers and the other troubled economies of the EU.

Are Greece, Portugal and Spain being dealt with in the same high-handed manner as Ireland?

So I sit here today and wonder are the peripheral nations of Europe at war with the central powers?  Has what was supposed to be an alliance for mutual benefit become the foundation for a new form of Imperialism.  Where the Euro and private debt made public and where penury in the disguise of bail outs replace tanks, guns and bombs.

Despite this I still hold out great hope for both my nation and Europe as a whole.  If there does in fact exist an economic war within Europe, I am encouraged by the lack of those tanks, guns and bombs.  Let’s face it a war without a daily body count and state funerals is definitely a step forward or at least it marks only a small step back.

Apologies late post.

Due to feeling distinctly hammered under I won’t be posting my usual Saturday post.  Sorry but I think resting for a day and feeling human again tomorrow is a better bet.  I will post something up tomorrow though.  In the mean time enjoy the eternal picture of my puppy. This time in the continuing adventures of Winter, Winter has a nap with her teddy bear.

Joy is a soft couch and slightly chewed teddy-bear.

Elisabeth Sladen dies aged 63

Normally I would never post about the death of an actress. However to me, Elisabeth Sladen was not just another actress, one of her characters helped me to stay sane and stay alive, at a time in my life when very little else was helping.

Long ago, way back in the mid 80’s, the BBC were showing reruns of the Tom Baker years of Doctor Who.  Alongside Bakers nutty, slightly deranged portrayal of the Doctor was this fantastic, young woman.  That was Elisabeth Sladen, though it would be a few more years before I knew her name in reality.  Back then to me she was Sarah Jane, the Doctors companion and more she was everything I dreamt of becoming when I grew up.

Sarah Jane was tough, smart, funny and bubbly.  She was often scared but didn’t seem to let her fears rule her.  Best of all she was a writer, well journalist but an 8 or 9-year-old doesn’t make that kind of distinction, even then I wanted to tell stories.  She was one other thing, which had then just begun to matter a great deal to me.  She was extraordinarily beautiful.

Being a very young transsexual girl is hard, especially when you don’t have any big sister to look up to.  But in some ways that fictional character, which Elisabeth Sladen had made so indescribably real to me, became for a long time the big sister I needed be able to look up to.  She had adventures, she was brave and smart and pretty.  She even had a metal dog.

She was in part, what got me through my primary education, in an all boys school.  All the bullying, for being odd in a way the other pupils couldn’t put their finger on, I could get through, because at the end of the week I might get to see Sarah Jane have another adventure.  It genuinely helped.  Probably more than even I am really aware of.

I could say a lot more, but instead I will say this.  Where ever Elisabeth Sladen is, thank you for the small way in which you helped me.  And I hope with all my heart that your family will find the happiness and peace they deserve the hard days to come.

Tango’ed an Irish affliction.

A walk down Dublin’s historic Grafton Street, is almost always a pleasurable affair.  With shops on either side filled to capacity with gorgeous things to wear and restaurants filled to bursting point with delicious delicacies to eat, what could be better?  Well as you saunter down the street, why not increase your enjoyment by counting the number of Irish men and women you see, who’ve been Tango’ed?

Like many of my fellow Irish citizens, I am a member of a mongrel breed.  Ireland has been invaded so many times, that there can be very few, if any, of us who don’t have a good dollop of invader blood in there somewhere.  Though all of our invaders have been of the northern, pale skinned variety. Add that to the historical tendency of Irishmen to join foreign armies, you know for a good ole paid bust up, and there’s bound to be a goodly portion of Portuguese, Spanish, French, Indian and the Gods only know what in a fair few of us.

The end result of all this genetic diversity, through some form of genetic pinball means that we have not ended up with swarthy good-looks.  No, in fact the average Irish person has skin that goes from “so pale as to be see-through” to “oh  my that looks like a delicious lobster” in about the same amount of time as it took you to read this sentence.

But there are still so many people who will insist on looking like they were born on the Costa Del Somewhere Sunny.  Hence this golden age for those “lucky” women who with their spray guns, get the unequaled pleasure of spraying brownish chemicals onto the nations cellulite riddled, pasty flesh.  Lucky girls. Now I am not saying that every Irish person with a fake tan looks like the bastard child of an Oompa-Loompa and a satsuma.  There are a lucky few who actually manage to look well while wearing a layer of Bovril colored paint on their skins.  But they are vastly outnumbered by those, poor unfortunates, who seem to be of the opinion that marigold orange is a natural skin tone for human beings.

This of course leads to my favourite shopping trip game; Irish Tango Bingo.

Here’s how you play.  Walk through your local town, be it Dublin,  Cork…anywhere at all that is inhabited by a human variety of the bipedal chocolate orange.  As you saunter down the street you watch out for an example of each of the following:

Man in well-tailored suit with skin tone you could toast bread off of.

Woman in well-tailored dress or skirt-suit with skin tone you could warm your hands off of.

Man or woman in a shell suit, which is on the verge of melting from their skin tone.

Teenager of either gender who looks like they’ve been dipped in the toxic waste produced by Willy Wonka’s factory.

Young boy or girl in Communion or confirmation outfit, who has an oddly coloured tan, which ends abruptly at their wrists leaving their hands a pristine porcelain white.

The first member of your shopping party to point out all four examples (which must be verifiably Irish, I leave how you determine this to yourselves to figure out) shouts out, “Tango’ed!” and wins a free lunch paid for by their friends.

Of course eventually the days of this particular game will be over.  Someday Irishmen and women will accept, that we do not come from the Mediterranean region.  But instead come from a cold island in the Atlantic, where direct sunlight is measured in nanoseconds per year.  We will all learn to accept, that our pasty natural skin tone can be just as attractive as a tan, fake or natural.  After all there must be some reason why invaders always rape our priests and murder our women…hmmm I may have got that wrong somehow.

But for now I say let us enjoy a good wholesome game of Irish Tango Bingo, while we enjoy the cooling spray of the traditional Irish summer monsoon.

A very Irish form of apartheid.

Ireland in many ways is a very odd country.  Mostly it manifests itself in harmless idiosyncrasies. But just occasionally it comes out in the form of certain “harmless” traditions.  The worst of these comes in the form of our tradition of forced indoctrination, otherwise known as baptism.

Yes I do realise that I am painting a big target on my back by posting this, but there are things that need to be said.  I was, like most people in the Irish state, given no choice in my faith as a child.  At a very tender age, when the highlight of any day was finding something new to chew and suck on, I was baptised into a cult which some people, myself included, now see as an illegal organisation, the Catholic church.  This act immediately opened up for me a vast panorama of opportunities for both education and abuse.

Now while this post, could so easily turn into just another church bashing exercise, that is not what I wish to speak about today.  Instead I want to call into question what I have already named “forced indoctrination”.  I also want to speak about how the integration of faith and state leads not to equality, but instead to some citizens being more equal than others.

Let us start then with the children.  An Irish child baptised into the Catholic faith is certain to receive a relatively good primary education. An education which their parents will most like approve of.  Mixed in with the lessons on maths, Irish, English and all the other essentials of a good Irish education will be catechism.  Half an hour per day of being taught how to be a good Catholic.  Leaving aside the fact that this, 2.5 hours of class time would probably be better spent making sure the child is actually literate, what does it say about Ireland?

It certainly shows how deep the concept of faith is ingrained into our society.  When you consider that other countries, the USA being a prime example, consider the religious education of children to be the parents responsibility, it does shed light on an unsettling fact about Ireland.  Ireland is still a Catholic nation.

Of course this is rubbish.  Ireland has always had and always will have its atheists, protestants, muslims, jews and pagans.  But you only have to look at our laws and the constitution from which they spring to see the special position granted to Catholicism by our nation.  Many people in Ireland will say “So what?”

To those people I say this, think back to your days in school.  Did you even know one person who wasn’t a Catholic?  I know I didn’t.  In fact it wasn’t until my early teens, when I started to travel around Ireland that, I came into contact with fellow Irish citizens, people who believed in our shared  country as fervently as I do but who were of any other faith.  Even then, it was a year or so before I came to realise that many of them were by virtue of how Ireland is structured, second class citizens.  And that the separation which existed then between me and them was founded on my forced indoctrination to a faith which in all truth and honesty I had never believed in.

These days after my removal from the register of baptisms,  I am an odd sort of Pagan.  I believe in all the gods who have ever been spoken of.  It just happens that one specific god has better public relations these days than any of the others.  But while I have no problem with the existence of a Judo-Islamic-Christian god, I see the Torah, Koran and Bible as nothing more than extraordinarily long-lived works of fantastical fiction combined with half-baked philosophy. Something akin to The Lord of the Rings, but with added rules.  They are not holy texts to me, in my life no text is holy.  But if I someday am forced to give evidence in court, or am otherwise expected to give sworn testimony, I will by virtue of how Ireland is run be required to swear on some book that to me is nothing but fiction.

What is all this leading to?  A few questions actually, I don’t claim to have answers which would work for anyone else.

(The following questions are not intended just for use on the Catholic faith, insert the faith of your choice and the same questions should apply equally.)

How is it moral to drop a child, who can not consent, in to a faith not of their own choosing?

How is it moral to then while they are still too young to comprehend what they are undertaking, expect them to take part in further ceremonies intended to tie them for life to that same faith, again a faith not of their own choosing?

How can it be right for the vast majority of schooling in any country to be run by one faith, who insist on forcing over two hours of further indoctrination on their young impressionable students? (Admittedly this is finally changing, but it is a disgrace to our nation that the Catholic church has had this power for so long.)

Why isn’t the practice of an individuals faith something which is only undertaken in their own private life, period?

But most of all, how can we call ourselves a free nation, a nation built on the concept of universal equality, when one faith is enshrined in our laws?

How can I as someone who does not share that faith, feel that I have an equal voice in my own country, when the laws by which I must live  my life by, give voice to notions which belong to that church?

How can I not feel that I am somehow segregated from my fellow citizens, when if I swear to give good evidence I can not simply state, “On my honour as a citizen in good standing, I swear to answer all questions with truth to the very utmost of my ability.” and have my word of honour be my bond?  Doing this while understanding that my fate, if I should perjure myself will be the same as that of my fellow citizen who took their oath on a bible.

In modern Ireland we live as a segregated nation.  Some of the forms of separation are blatantly obvious, such as the different rights for heterosexual and same-sex couples.  However some of the ways in which we are held apart from our fellow country men are subtle and insidious. As subtle as an atheist/pagan swearing on what is to them a work of fiction, but having to hold a straight face while they do so, to save the sensitivities of people on the inside from being bruised, by those who live their lives on the outside.

Humanity is definitely doomed, I just watched “A Different Breed.” on Sky 1

Wednesday night, 8pm, in an attempt to find something watchable to bridge the gap between, M*A*S*H the television series and M*A*S*H the original movie my partner and I found a new program on Sky 1.  Called “A Different Breed” it’s all about dog owners in the UK.  But these aren’t your normal dog owners, these are the special ones who should probably be locked in a rubber room, for their own safety.  I will give you one example.

One woman. (Whose name I erased from the pages of my memory in what might be the vain attempt to save myself from an idiot induced psychotic episode.) Who happens to be the owner of a pet grooming salon, was arranging a wedding.  For her dog!  Oh and I do mean a wedding, complete with hotel for the reception, flowers, dresses, tuxedo’s and a frikkin lunatic dog owner.  It was to say the very least horrific viewing, as the show followed her around hotels and wedding fairs.  However it’s at the point when she tells a hotel owner, that her precious pooch pooping on his hotel grounds, marks the dogs blessing for his hotel to be used that I wanted to tear her hair out and strangle her with it.

This did not mark the very worst of the show however.  Worse still was the bulldog fashion show. I shit you not, a fashion show comprised purely of what has to be the most butt-achingly ugly dog breed in existence.  Look despite what bulldog owners may say, bulldogs are not cute ugly, they’re very much ugly-ugly.  Sweet yes, endearing in an odd way yes, but cute….frik no.  Anyway I digress, imagine bulldogs in tutu’s, bulldogs dressed as action men, bulldogs dressed as pimps and you’re starting to get the picture.

Now don’t get me wrong in all this, I am a serious dog lover.  I adore them and would do anything within the realms of sanity for my Winter to keep her fit and healthy.  But these people aren’t just dog lovers, I suspect a few of them might be dog (pronounce next word with a strong french accent) lovers.  These are the sort of people, who need a good smack across the back of the head with a battle-axe.  Even if it doesn’t set them straight it will remove them from the gene-pool.

I’ve always harboured a deep and strong faith, in humanities ability to save itself, from whatever disasters might befall our species in the coming decades and even centuries. We are, I thought an intelligent species, who can in the darkest of moments put aside self-interest and work towards the common good.  Worse, I had always seen humankinds mostly mutually beneficial partnership with our dogs, as one of the most glowing examples of why humans have such potential.  But now that I have seen this show.  Filled with the sort of people I wouldn’t trust with a pair of blunt children’s scissors, it is now my considered opinion, that the human race is most definitely doomed.

If you want to see visual evidence of the descent of man, accompanied by the itchy feeling you get when you realise the sort of people who share the gene-pool with you, A Different Breed is on Wednesdays at 8pm on Sky 1.

I’ve fallen in love…with my graphics tablet

Like many others I’ve harbored the long-held dream of writing, drawing and publishing my own webcomic.  In my case, I have for many years semi-permanent visions of comic characters flashing through my head.  Even when I am writing literary fiction, I tend to envision my characters strutting their stuff in a comic style.  But always two things have stood in my way.

1: Artistic talent. While I do have some significant game, at least where it comes to engineering style drawing.  I am a near incompetent, where moe artistic drawing is called for.  The sad part is that once upon a time, many moons ago I had reasonable skills in both.

2: Equipment. Now you’re thinking to yourself “What the frik is she talking about?  Get thee to a stationers Missy and buy some pencils and pads.”  That’s not the sort of equipment I’m talking about.  Being amongst other things a table-top roleplayer, I have no shortage of either pencils or pads.  What I mean by equipment is the means to get my drawings onto my PC and to manipulate those images to best effect.

Strictly speaking, there was a third thing lacking as well, a web space suitable for hosting a webcomic.  But let’s face it WordPress.com is a glorious resource that will be quite suitable for webcomics also.  At least it will be if I use the right theme to support it.

Now for ages my webcomic ideas (I have several though one is far more developed than the others, damn my Muse and her being hyped up on speed.  Seriously the girl is like Liv Tyler in Empire Records, hot but has a serious chemical problem.) languished in the recesses of my brain.  Then I started this blog and realised that I could indeed put my thoughts out there to be read.  Though whether that is a good thing or not…we’ll see.

So venue for my artistic vision achieved I had a horrid realisation.  I have truly lost all my artistic capabilities.  So despondency and sloth occurred.

But then, something both horrid and wonderful happened.  One of my lil sisters left Ireland for Canada and I inherited a lot of her electronics.  I inherited her PC, which rocks, I mean seriously, I can now run World of Warcraft with completely maxed out graphics settings.   I inherited a few old IDE hard drives with a lovely enclosure.  But I also was given a graphics tablet.

I am officially in love with my graphics tablet.  It’s a Wacom Intuos-1, which makes it at least ten years old.  So of course, being by now an experienced tech-chick I was beset by system compatibility fears. After all how many electronic love stories have ended in the ashes of incompatibility over the years?  So very many, but not my tablet, it just plugged and played.  No problems, no hassles.

Not only did it run perfectly, but to my complete surprise it was for me at least, so much easier to draw with than a paper and pen.  I have yet to figure out why this is so, but I have found that a lot of the basic drawing skills are much easier to use on my tablet.  I’ve been using it with GIMP, as I don’t own a copy of Photoshop.  But despite both my tablet and GIMPs limitations, not to mention my own, I’ve managed to do better drawings in the last week than in the previous ten years.

So inspired by my limited successes, I have started to look for a good comprehensive art class in my area.  I have graphic stories I want to tell, and now that I have the means to tell them, I need the skills as well.

So right now you might be sitting there wondering “Why has she written a page from a diary as a blog post?”  Well there’s a point to all this seemingly pointless waffle.  I spent years waiting to start my webcomic projects.  I was paralyzed by the immensity of what I wanted to do.  But that first sudden realisation that with WordPress, I could host my vision made me realise a very important truth.  A truth which I should have already known from my experiences during the writing of my first novel.

If you have a big project, there’s no need to freeze up.  It’s not a big project at all.  It is in fact a myriad of little projects, which huddled together for warmth have made themselves seem big.  Break it down into manageable chunks.

My webcomic projects, the first of which I hope to start publishing before the end of this year, was held up by what were actually several very manageable pieces huddled together.  Skills, web hosting, equipment.  Well all but one is now dealt with and that  one I hope to soon make a thing of the past.