Well, I'm back.

After over a two year break from blogging I've decided to make a return to the scene. As for why the blogging stopped in the first place... well I don't really know, possibly because I had nothing interesting to write about (still true I'm afraid). I've been enjoying reading a lot more blogs by other people lately though so I thought I would give it another go myself.

Since I last wrote here Facebook has taken the online social networking scene by storm and I'll be taking advantage of that. Using the cool import feature which allows RSS feeds to show up in Facebook notes and update without any extra effort on my part. So for those of you reading this on Facebook it originally appeared on my blog site hosted by googles blogspot which I've named Mattous Blogous (You see what I did there?). So today I took some time to look through all the old posts fixing the missing images, removing the dead links, adding some new ones and correcting an alarming number of spelling mistakes.

The main reason for starting up this again though is because I'm about to start another blog in a month-ish to share my experiences on playing World of Warcraft (WOW). The blog is called World of Mattous currently nothing much on it because I'm not playing WOW at the moment. I took a break to focus on my last term of University (which you can see I'm clearly doing heh). I don't think I'll subject the guys on facebook to importing the blog there. The vast majority won't care at all, not that you'll really care about what's being said here either but hey, you don't have to read it.

As for whats going on with me at the moment it's two weeks until I finish University, I have two projects due (which I have hardly started) and one exam. So I really don't have time for procrastinating like this. I have a house sorted for when the contract in my current house runs out. I'll be staying in Middlesbrough moving back into the house I was in during my first second year. No contracts have been signed yet but just waiting for them to do some background checks (eep) and then it should all be good. After the movings done the plan is to find a job and start paying off some serious debt that's accumulated over the last four years.

Millions of years ago

Before we could even read we were shown pictures of dinosaurs and were told that they lived 70 million years ago, after we'd learnt to read we read it for ourselves and if you were anything like me you loved dinosaurs and lets face it they are pretty cool. But I was more interested in space in school we were taught that 20 billion years ago there was a big bang and about 4 billion years ago the earth was formed and gradually over the last few billion years humans evolved from some kind of soup that appeared when the rocks go rained on.

For years I didn't have any problem with this until about 3 and a half years ago when I became a Christian. You see evolution has been a bit of a problem for me these past few years. In the bible it says that God created the earth and everything in it in just 7 days (see Genisis 1:1-2:10). Now I believe that the bible is true but I'll be honest this was probably the toughest thing for me. All my life we've been taught that the universe is billions of years old and we evolved from some kind of soup which came alive (I don't pretend to understand it that’s just what it seems like to me). You see this presents a huge problem for me the Bible says God created the Universe and everything in it in 7 days but evolution says that 20 billion years ago something exploded and here we are. Who do I/we believe?

One of these must be true unless there both wrong. I've never questioned the power of God I believe that for God making the Universe and everything in it in 7 days is very possible I don't doubt that God is capable of that, it's just that everything that evolution teaches tells us, that the universe is billions of years old. So could the world really be only 6,000 years old? That’s the number that you get if you add up all the dates in the bible. These are even the dates we use to record historical events and know what year it is (not that that's got anything to do with what I'm getting at here).

Now I don't really know where I'm going with this I'm still trying to figure it all out for myself. About a week ago one of the guys in my small group gave us all a copy of some seminars by an American speaker called Dr Kent Hovid. His seminars revealed some very interesting things, not all the things he talks about are facts but almost all of the things that kids find in there school text books about evolution have been proved wrong and for some reason they are still in the text books. One theory that has been proven wrong since the late 1800's still appears in the text books as evidence that evolution true. They weren't proven wrong by creationists either they were proved wrong by evolutionists. I'm not going to go through it all I would be writing all night if I did. If your interested then look for yourself at Dr Hovid's website www.drdino.com post your comments and feelings about it here. Like I said I don't have the answers and this website probably doesn't have them all either but I've found it very interesting so have a look and tell me what you think.

Yes I'm still playing World of Warcarft (our guild British Beef is going great) but I'm cutting down (man I sound like an addict - lets face it I am) University work is going well got a B in my last bit of course work which I'm pretty pleased with. For those of you down in Kent I'll be coming back on the evening of the 7th of April and coming back up north sometime around the 19th of 20th. See you soon!

24/7

Hello blog reading friends! Firstly thanks to those who do read, I'm told that more people read than I thought did so thats good! If you read though please post a comment! That way I will know you have read my ramblings and will sleep easier at night.

So it's been a few weeks since I wrote here I've been enjoying a lazy reading week in which I have done little or rather no reading. Which has been fantastic, yes I've played a lot of World of Warcraft, but not too much. Though just looking at xfire (which records the time I've spent playing games each week) and I've played 40 hours of WoW (World of Warcraft). Which is like a full time job! If only I was getting paid! Whats even more disturbing is that I've spent the past year playing WoW and according to xfire I've played it for a total of 765 hours! Which if my calculations are correct is 31ish days! so I spent a whole month playing WoW in a year! Amazing really! and I'm sure very very sad! It worries me to think what exactly I spent the other 11 months doing! A large amount of it must of been sleep... probably best that we don't know!

Anyway moving on from my geekyness to more healthy areas of my seemingly uncultured life. This week is 24/7 prayer, allow me to explain. Every year the CU (Christian Union) borrows a room from St Aidens community church and spends an entire week in there praying! The idea is that there is always someone there, even at stupid-o'clock in the morning. I've done a few shifts in there and it's been really good. We've got our Alpha course starting soon so mostly we have been praying for that but other things as well, like the local churchs, Middlesbrough, the Uni and stuff.

Yesterday night I ended up at The Empire which is probably the best club in Middlesbrough it was the first time I'd been and it was completely unexpected. We saw three bands the last being the best by far called The Infadels they had one song that I had heard of but they really did rock! The Empire is alot like Shepherds Bush Empire in London, its an old theater with the 3 floors, standing down on the ground floor and seating on floors 1 and 2 all with a view of the stage.

"Oh the same as yesterday, how dull. I wonder what happens if I bang this rock against these heads"

Terry Pratchett, Theif of Time. Talking about the dangers of boredom.

Multipass

Long time no blog so I thought I would fill you all in on whats happening right now with me. Despite what you may think I have not been playing as much World of Warcraft as I have been, I've been trying to do my coursework but am finding many other things to distract me. I am making progress though it'll be a tight squeeze to get it all done by Friday but I'll manage, I always do. Oh and I got another ICA today to model and build a database in Microsoft SQL server 2003, gonna be a tough one but we've got till June to do it so loads of time.

A few weeks back Rachel (Chair of the CU) asked if I wanted to lead the prayer meeting that we have on Tuesday mornings and this morning was the morning. It's been ages since I've done anything like that so it was good to get the chance. I'm don't think I'm very good at leading but it went well this morning I think and so did the others which is encouraging. We've done a lot of praying for Alpha which is coming up at the end of February, not to mention 24/7 prayer week which is the week before Alpha starts so February will be a busy week CU wise.

I've been finding myself very easily distracted as I said earlier, if you are looking for something to distract you from work or whatever then I'll list a few of the things that I've been getting a bit carried away with while trying to do some work.

http:/artpad.art.com - Draw whatever you like then send the links to people and they can watch the art being re-drawn the exact same way you drew it. Heres a few of my creations http://artpad.art.com/?itmcqax74x8 - http://artpad.art.com/?itm2nabk1p8 - http://artpad.art.com/?itm2bdtkluk.

A few webforums, always good for a read - Mattous Forum, World of Warcraft Forums, FM Forums.

Lost has finally started showing again in America which means I've been watching it here. These past two episodes have been amazing! Some of the things that have been bugging me a lot have started to get explained a little more. Well not really explained but you do find out more about whats going on, but without still really understanding whats going on. I've been watching them with Pete now too which is defiantly better than watching them on my own and speaking of Pete it's his birthday this Friday which means Houseparty! then were off to Walkabout! Thats the same day my coursework has to be handed in so I'll have something additional to celebrate!

Fun a Societies day back at the start of the year, picture taken by Jo I believe.

Ballz

Well I've had a break from my normal blog because I've been concentrating on my World of Warcraft Blog. I've been having a lot of fun with it, but today I decided to give it a rest because I was going a little crazy with the amount I've been playing.

I've been back at uni just over a week now and theres really not much to say. I'm still good and so is everyone else. During my boredom I decided to go looking for an Advert that I'd seen a few times that's really impressed me. The Sony Bouncy Balls website (or Sony BRAVIA < - my name is better) if you haven't seen it checkout the video because it's quite simply amazing.

Sony get 250,000 multi-coloured bouncy balls and start pouring them down the streets of San Francisco. First time I saw it I just thought it was some kind of special effect but when I realised that it was real I got a new found respect for Sony for doing something so crazy. The advert is in slow-motion with José González playing is song ‘Heartbeats’ in the background. The result is incredible and if it wasn’t shot on the streets of San Francisco then you would think it was alien. Beautiful stuff.

Well 2006 is officially here now as you all know. I'm tired and feeling pretty bored still at home. Tonight I'm off to Leeds and then tomorrow I'll be back at Uni in Middlesbrough. I can't wait to get back!

New Years Resolutions

1. Quit Drinking - Just to see if I can


2. Proper Diet - Instead of just freezer food everyday


3. Do some work - Because I don't want to fail my second year


4. Invest more time in relationship - With God and People


5. Reinstall WoW - Rejoin British Beef and cause havoc on the Agamaggan server
   

There they are... How many of them will I keep? Who knows, I'm guessing not all of them but I bound to manage to keep a few :D

A note on WoW - yes I've decided to go back despite the fact that I quit only 6 weeks ago. I miss it too much and really want to get involved in the guild that I started again. I'm gonna roll either a Priest or Warrior because the guild doesn't have either (not decent ones anyway). I think I'll start by trying Priest but if it's not to my liking then I'll try Warrior. I'm going to be setting up a separate blog on my site for talking about WoW because I don't want to bore all the people that don't play.

Anyway happy new year everyone! I hope that you had a good night last night and that this year will be the best yet!

Snow

A few days late but close enough :)