Back in the game!

So, if you, like me, were born in the 80's and grew up in the 90's, chances are you played, or wanted to play, games like Simon the Sorcerer, Beneath a Steel Sky, Day of the Tentacle, Monkey Island, Broken Sword, Flight of the Amazon Queen, Gobliiins or a host of other point-and-click adventure games, then this is for you. ScummVM!

ScummVM stands for Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion Virtual Machine. What this little beast does is that it acts as a Virtual Machine for these games. So finaly you can get into these games again, and it doesn't matter if you have the MS-DOS, Apple Macintosh, Commodore Amiga or Atari TOS versions of the games, all will work. If you don't have any of these games you can find some demos here, and the Public Domaine games here. Oh, and did I mension that ScummVM is available for a multitude of platforms: Amiga OS 4, BeOS (and presumably it should run on Haiku OS), Mac OS X, Windows a host of Linux flavours and many more (most notably SEGA DreamCast, Nintendo DS and Sony PSP).

This is a lot of fun and I whole heartedly recommend this. I hope you to find that these old games are still very good, and a lot of fun.

---Happy Gaming---

/ | \ Taran MacDuir

I just have to show this!

--- Blessed be ---

/ | \ Taran MacDuir

A little on Mr Potter

So I did promise to get back with my impressions of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and yes, I did like it. But…I still feel it lacked some of that magic you usually get. This probably has something to do with this Potter movie being the shortest one, and at the same time derrived from the thickest book so far. Over at IMDb it gets a 7.9 rating, and Rotten Tomatoes it gets 77%, both very good ratings. And I would agree with them. I certainly don't think it's a bad movie. ut it seems to require you to have read the book to really get the full impact of it, which is a little anoying if you haven't. And also I was surprised that the spectacular scenes in the Department of Mysteries and the Weasley twins leaving Hogwarts weren't more spectacular. The were deffinitivley more fantastic in the book, and could have been done better.

Even so, both J.K. Rowling and Warner Brothers are impressed enough to let the same director, David Yates, at it again for the next film: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Also returning is screenwriter Steve Kloves, who has written all the screenplays except the pressent one.

Over all though, it is a great and dark movie, and I think everyone who is even remotley intressted in J.K. Rowlings world of Wichcraft and Wizardry should go see it right now! It does feel a little cramped, but it's still Harry Potter. Now all we have to do is wait for the 7th book: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows! Head on over to Mugglenet, or listen to their PodCast, for more on everything Potteresque!

--- May you be blessed ---

/ | \ Taran MacDuir

P.S. Why not try the new PodCast RowlingCast?

It's a sad thing

One of, well in a sense, my cats has died. He was a very special cat, always helping at meditations and very much of his own mind. His name was Troubadix, and we found him and his brother six years ago at the roadside where someone had just left them to die. A few days ago he met his end at that very roadside. Maybe you can't trick fate, eh?

Last year his brother died, Pytte, and he just wasn't the same cat after that. He was deaf see, and I think that even though he and his brother didn't always get along, they needed eachother to feel safe.

It is with great sorrow that I and my family took farewell of one of the most extraordinary cats we've ever had the pleasure of knowing. And in his honour I'm going to publish the lyrics for a song that I find appropriate, and thus probably violating something. But if I get sued for that, this really is a heartless world. I choose to believe it isn't!

Is it a kind of dream,
Floating out on the tide,
Following the river of death downstream?
Oh, is it a dream?

There's a fog along the horizon,
A strange glow in the sky.
And nobody seems to know where you go.
And what does it mean?
Oh, is it a dream?

Bright eyes,
Burning like fire.
Bright eyes,
How can you close and fail?
How can the light that burned so brightly
Suddenly burn so pale?
Bright eyes.

Is it a kind of shadow,
Reaching into the night,
Wandering over the hills unseen?
Or is it a dream?

There's a high wind in the trees,
A cold sound in the air.
And nobody ever knows when you go.
And where do you start,
Oh, into the dark?

Bright eyes,
Burning like fire.
Bright eyes,
How can you close and fail?
How can the light that burned so brightly
Suddenly burn so pale?
Bright eyes.

Bright eyes,
Burning like fire.
Bright eyes,
How can you close and fail?
How can the light that burned so brightly
Suddenly burn so pale?
Bright eyes. (Lyrics by Art Garfunkle)

We love you Troubadix, you went first into the great mystery. Let's hope we can meet again some day…

--- May your Gods and Goddesses care for you! ---

/ | \ Taran MacDuir

Oh, yet another petition! Sign it too!

Please sign this petition too! It is similar to the other one but may be seen as more of an Irish petition. No matter, we are all Europeans now!!!

-- May the ancients arise again! --

/ | \ Taran MacDuir

Please sign this!

I will site another page here:

[savetara.com] important request

Hi everyone,

I've an important request.

Can I ask any of you who haven't already signed our petition, could you sign it.
It's from our German based international campaign here, and at the moment we are
about 270 signatures short of 12000. It's very important in a short space of
time to try and reach this number, so the information would have to be passed
around to as many people as you can, and ask them to pass it on etc.
I've asked Muireann's permission to put this email on the CST list, and I'm
hoping you can all work some wonders in a short time, and get the number past
12000.

The link is:
http://www.petitiononline.com/Temair/petition.html

And if you need further information our website is www.protect-tara.org

Thanks to everyone in advance.

I'd just like to add what I've said to a number of people privately, that I
absolutely believe that this is a fight we will eventually win. Lets keep the
vision of Tara being safe and restored to its great beauty clearly in our minds.

Fionnuala


Please, here the call! Sign the petition!

-- May our Gods and Goddesses help us! --

/ | \ Taran MacDuir

Tara needs us!

There is a cry for help coming from the green shores of Éire, and I think it is only appropriate that the pagan international community, and especially the European one, steps up and helps in any way. The Irish government has proposed, clubbed through and started building a motorway straight through the valley of Gabhra. This would affect a number of historical sites of cultural and religious significance to all of Europe, and of course can't be aloud to happen.

The main sites being affected by the construction of the M3, as the road would be called, is The Hill of Tara and Skryne.

"It [Tara] contains a number of ancient monuments, and, according to tradition, was the seat of the Árd Rí Éireann or High King of Ireland." - Wikipedia

To put it into context, this would be like the British government deciding to build a road straight through Stonehenge or the Swedish one to build houses at Ale's Stenar! But of course
the British government is actually planning just that! Weather or not this will be any good in the end, remains to be seen. One wonders why they built the roads surrounding it in the first place! (The A303 and A344 that is.)



I personally think that this is something the EU should put their hand into and stop. This cannot be aloud, for the sake of our heritage and our pagan ancestors. If ever there was a blasphemous crime in Ireland, this would be it!

you can follow this unfolding circus at SaveTara.com, or have a look in at the Tara-foundation.org. The Tara Foundation also have a Bebo site, a Yahoo! Group and a host of pictures over at PhotoBucket. I implore you, go check it out and do what you can!

-- May your Gods and Goddesses bless you, and may they save Tara! --

/ | \ Taran MacDuir

Watch this for now!

We're of to see the Wizard…

the wonderful wizard of…well, Hogwarts! I and Neina and some others will be at the Park Theatre tonight. We're all looking forward to it. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix!

Well, merry meet

-- May your Gods bless you! --

/ | \ Taran MacDuir

More on Druids

Well, ok, some more on the Druid Way?

I've gotten some tips on free courses and an on line book that you can read for free.

First we have some stuff from the DruidNetwork.org in their courses page. My friends Neina and Wynja over at Hyllebær recommends the the Perennial Course in Druidry. I haven't gone through them yet, but both seem very solid. Their section on What Druidry Is is also very good.

Emma Restall Orr's book Principles of Druidry is available under the name What is Druidry? for free on line. Judging by what people say, it is a very good book.

Last, but not least, the New Order of Druids in the Netherlands, offers plenty things for free on the internet. Among other things, you can find some course material, though it does seem it needs more commitment than the DruidNetwork stuff, but hey! They also have NOD TV, No Ordinary Druid TV. Some in Dutch, a lot in English, and interesting non the less.

-- May your Gods bless you!--

/ | \ Taran MacDuir

Comedy and Computers

For some of us comedy is as important as air. So, why not enjoy Scottish comedian Billy Connolly. For your viewing pleasure an example can be viewed below:




I recommend a search through YouTube, if the link still works, click here. I do recommend you check out the video with Billy at Michel Parkinson's show, it is hilarious!

Oh, and since we cant watch the Colbert Report on YouTube or such anymore (grumble grumble…), you can at least get this clip from woz.org. It's an interview Stephen Colbert did with Woz (Steve Wozniak for those who doesn't know was one of the co-founders
of Apple). It is very funny, especially when Woz tell of his little jokes on airplanes…

Druids galore!

Hello! (again). Well, that was a Mac reference that most of you probably wont get or find in the least funny, so anyway.
Surfing around on the web can often times be an excruciating experience, unless you know what you are after. As a spiritual person I find that sites that include info on non-abrahamithic religion is plentyfull, but can be difficult to find, and PodCasts can be even more so. I therefor take it upon myself to add a few suggestions to what I've already posted.

I recommend the DruidCast, which is a podcast from the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids. This podcast is very well recorded and features music, history and other information on all things Druid.

"Your host is Damh the Bard and each episode he will feature poetry, story and song offered by Bards throughout the world. There will also be interviews with people from the Druid tradition, seasonal thoughts, explorations of Celtic mythology and history, reviews, and competitions."*

What sets it apart is that unlike many other podcasts on the subject, it's produced in Europe and not North America, rendering it more useful over here. For a direct link for iTunes click here, otherwise head on over to the site and choose your preference.

For those music lovers out there, I can recomend The Irish and Celtic Music PodCast, which makes a nice addition to A Darker Shade of Pagan, which I believe I've mentioned before. It isn't strictly pagan, but on the other hand it is folk music, and as we all know, most folk music is more or less pagan, even if they happen to mention themes from other religions from time to time… ;-) The PodCast also has a homepage to be found here.

Well, enjoy that for now,

-- May your Gods bless your path! --

/ | \ Taran MacDuir