Today I resolved to buy a book such as Islam for Dummies so that I can get a good overview of Islam and understand this world religion. I think I have a pretty good understanding of Christianity— what Jesus was probably like, why he was inspirational enough for his followers to start a new religion, and how his message of peace and love somehow got distorted to things such as “Praise the Lord, Pass the Ammunition”. But it’s payday and I going to have lean week, so maybe I’ll have to think laterally.

Also today I swam further than I ever have before. I normally do 33 or 34 laps which makes one kilometre. I was nearing the end of these, and there was a pretty blonde girl in a light-blue bikini in the next lane who swam at a similar pace to mine. She would rest more often than I would, but would swim when I was, probably to pace herself against me. Or something. So I finished my 34 laps at the deep end, but there she was behind me, so I went back to the shallow end to have a ‘rest’ (35 laps). She stopped too and I made some trite remark about us being the same pace and as a boy in the pool you have to get accustomed to having one’s arse whipped by women who are much faster (I said that, but much less eruditely). Then I said how I was doing a swimming challenge and needed to swim five kilometres this week. She told me I swim very fast, which was either flattery, or she had genuinely not noticed all the people in the fast lane, where I’m not even close to competitive. After I laughed and denied it, an awkward pause later she indicated and said “Are you going [before me]?” So off I went and did five more laps (40), finishing in the deep end.

Socrates said that a life not contemplated was not worth living, but as I swam my last five laps I was acutely aware that I was only doing them because she was a pretty blonde girl in a light-blue bikini (as far as I could tell; I'm close to blind in the pool which generally makes me somewhat socially retarded). I longed to be a pre-Freudian Italian or suchlike guy who would have flirted with her excessively and ruined my muscles doing ten more laps as fast as I could and not been aware of or cared about my motivations. But that’s too late now...

I emailed Marion a hurried but much edited message this morning asking for her phone number. Asking someone out by email doesn’t cut it I think. What would have been even better would be to have already had her number. Ha ha ha!

At last I saw Return of the King last night. I was worried my bladder wouldn’t make it, but it came through with flying colours. Knowing Warcraft better than Lord of the Rings, I wondered whether some of the visual effects were borrowed from Warcraft, or whether it was all the other way round. Warcraft III came out six months after The Fellowship of the Ring— perhaps I should actually get around to seeing that one. Fishing a golden ring from the bottom of a body of water, and having two little people fighting over it rang a bell too, for someone who studied Wagner at school.

Twenty one days into Lent & still going strong! :)

Finally, last night I tried one of those amusing but irrelevant banners:

It got a lot of hits! Mental note to self: make sure you have a really interesting entry current before trying that again...

Here’s an interesting entry I’ve been reading by .

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