stuff and some things

This weekend, I:

• Did very little of a constructive nature and am now feeling guilty about it. I was pretty exhausted from a 50 hour work week, but really it was mostly sheer laziness.


• Went shopping for a new campervan. All were either too expensive or too dodgy; the search continues.


• Babysat my five-year-old niece. On Saturday, I took her to the Dead Zoo, an exhibition of natural history that includes a lot of stuffed animals and dinosaur skeletons. I have moral objections to the use of animals in this way, even for research purposes, but the niece really wanted to go and I am weak. I got my karmic payback from a huge model of a scabies mite. (I have a serious insect phobia and even the thought of scabies... *shudder*) And the stuffed members of extinct species were plain sad. But the niece had a wonderful time: mission accomplished. And it was a very interesting visit. I didn't know that there were birds so small that you could fit two or three in a matchbox, for example.


• Saw the Star Trek movie. It is as good as the reviews say. I went with a hardcore Trekker and someone who has never seen an episode. All of us enjoyed it. The effects and the mad plot and the science fictiony aspects were all great, but it was the acting, particularly Karl Urban's Bones and the Kirk/Spock interaction that made it for me. It's very easy to see how modern-day slash started with K/S. The fight on the bridge? The Spock Prime/Kirk mind meld? Yowsa.


• Went to IDAHO on Sunday, a religious service to mark the International Day Against Homophobia. It was depressing to listen to the list of Irish people who have been murdered just for being gay. But it was good to attend such an event which at least acknowledges Christianity's part in homophobia and aims to improve matters. Amusing too to hear speeches by church officials whose sweeping gilt-trimmed formal robes make them look like Darth Vader as styled by Dame Edna Everage. (Not that I should criticise anyone else's fashion sense; today I am wearing purple velvet and probably resemble a small mobile sofa.)