Next Time I’ll Win

Before you read on, please note that yesterday was the 27th of October. I only realised that this morning. I think it rather adds to the whole coincidence element of this (entirely true) tale. On with the whole purpose of this entry. Yesterday, I ventured out to a social line dancing party (yes, I line dance, and whatever you imagine it is like, I bet that you are completely wrong). The purpose of it was to find out how well I did in the bronze medal test that I took in Septemeber. (It was just a pass, but that is not an important part of the story.) Anyway, at some point during the night, we were told that we could take part in a game of Irish bingo. For those of you that do not know, Irish bingo is similar to normal bingo in that you have a card with numbers on it, but instead of having to get all of your numbers read out, you have to hope that none of your numbers get called out, because if that happens, you are out and have to sit down. My mother bought three tickety-card type things, on for herself, one for my sister, and one for me. At first I decided that I wanted the middle one, but then I changed my mind and asked for the top one. When she gave me the tickety-card thing, I noticed that three of the numbers were 7, my favourite number and the number of children that I would like ideally, 18, the age of some of my lovely, lovely friends, and 27, Mark Greaney’s age. This made me happy, because I like coincidences and I thought it was a rather lovely coincidence that we were playing Irish bingo, and his age was one of my numbers (Mark Greaney is Irish, nice coincidence, except maybe not that nice considering that the BBC website link up there says that it might be called ‘Irish bingo’ disrespectfully, but let’s not think about that). There were also some quite nice number combinations on it, such as 84, 85 and 86, and I think 33 and 44. The numbers started to be called out, and more and more people sat down. Eventually, there were just two of us left standing. Another number was called out… and… the man sat down! I had won! So I am now thirty-five pounds richer, which is quite pleasing. I think I deserved it because most of the people in that room probably earn money through work. It’s nice when things go right for us lazy ones. So, the point of me blogging this is not to show off that I won something, but to share my love of coincidences, and for people to get excited about the links between things, so that I do not feel so silly.

This morning I realised, not for the first time ever, but for the first time in quite a while, that I am very much the sort of person who links thoughts and ideas together in their mind in such a way so as to come out with something that appears utterly irrelevant and with a link to the previous subject of conversation that is rather incomprehensible to others. I am not so self-absorbed as to think that I am the only person in the world that thinks in this way, because, obviously, many, many people do it too, but the thing is, I seem to do it all the bloody time. It’s ridiculous. I’m not sure how people ever understand me. I’m sure that I could be having, for example, a conversation about rhubarb and, after a few seconds of silent word association, start talking about trains, or the Queen Mother, or some such other irrelevant thing. Maybe I am just exaggerating how much I think in this way. That seems like the sort of thing I would do. I exaggerate a lot, and a great deal of truth-bending (doesn’t that sound more hideous than lying? I think I will write lying.), sorry, a great deal of lying, does occur on a day-to-day basis, but that’s just who I am, and I never lie about anything important, partially for the reason that nothing important ever happens for me to lie about in the first place. Anyway, it has come to my attention that I have not actually made the point that I initially wanted to make. That point is this: thinking in a sort of word association way (but this morning, I was linking different people and events together rather than a tree->leaf->green sort of chain) can make you remember things that you had forgotten ever happening. I found it quite pleasant, although, I am incapable of telling you exactly what I remembered this morning, or the precise thought process that lead me to remember it, because I have actually forgotten again. Never mind…

No, not how I love thee. I am talking about the ways in which The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (N64) and Hamtaro: Ham-Ham Heartbreak (GBA) are similar. Yes, it may sound absolutely ridiculous, but I am being serious.Anyway, I will get to the point. Yesterday I finally completed Ham-Ham Heartbreak, after, I am going to be completely honest, quite a number of trips to Game FAQs, making it the second video game that I have ever completed (the first being Pokémon Ruby, and yes, I know I suck), and I couldn’t help but notice that there were a few extremely obvious Zelda references. As you can imagine, I got very excited, maybe a little too much so. Right. On to the comparison. First of all, in OoT, for those of you who don’t know, in order to become adult Link and basically get the game going properly, because, let’s face it, there is quite a large jump difficulty-wise, at least I found that, but let’s stay on topic. As I was trying to say, before I started rambling and making very little sense, in OoT, you have to collect three spiritual stones; the Kokiri emerald, the Goron ruby and the Zora sapphire, being, as you have probably guessed, green, red and blue, respectively. In Ham-Ham Heartbreak, you have to collect three marbles; one blue, one green, and one red. First similarity. The second similarity is that in OoT, you have to place the aforementioned spiritual stones in these little hole things in the Temple of Time. In Hamtaro, you have to put the marbles into slots in a pedestal. Thirdly, there is an extremely similar looking sword-holding pedestal in both games. So you’re there as child Link in the Temple of Time, and you pull out the sword from the pedestal, to find out that it is the master sword. Yay! And in Hamtaro, you pull the ’sword’ out to discover that it is…. THE LEGENDARY SPOON. Yes, a spoon. And a very useful one too. But anyway. The last similarity is that when you pull the legendary spoon out in Ham-Ham Heartbreak, there is actually Legend of Zelda music playing. Oh yes. In conclusion, Nintendo is fantastic. And they all lived happily ever after. The end.

Some people should think about what the fuck they are saying. By me saying that I don’t understand atheists is simply stating a fact, expressing my view on a subject, so for someone to come right out and say that by saying that, I am acting like everyone in the world who doesn’t agree with me is wrong, is absolutely fucking ridiculous. And not only that, but when I mention that they once full on had a go at me when I said I do not think it is particularly that important for women to have the vote, they had the nerve to say that they had every right to have a go at me! Their excuse? The fact that it is ’strange for a girl in this day and age to have such a view’. Sorry, but seriously, fuck off. That is prejudice. THAT is acting as if people with different views to you are wrong, so maybe that person should just stop being such a fucking hypocrite, because, to be perfectly honest, despite their age, they are hideously immature and I don’t want to waste my time arguing with them when we both know they are in the wrong, because, let’s face it, it’s pretty obvious. So if anyone else would like to be a total hypocrite and argue with me in such a way, don’t bother, just piss off and sort your head out, okay?

We should start a petition for a bridge to be built linking England and Ireland, and if that is geographically impossible, one linking Wales and Ireland, so that there can be trains, thus causing my mother not to say that it would not be ‘convenient’ for me to go to Dublin for a day.