in 60 Seconds or Less??? That’s the title of a video produced by the US National Science Foundation, from an original conception of the Annals of Improbable Research. It’s comprehensive, hilarious, and thought provoking.
The video is here. Be warned, it doesn’t work in Opera (you have to use IE, I fear) and you need RealPlayer.
The Annals of Improbable Research website has a bit of history on the History. All you need for this is a browser!
I always thought there were more nuts per square mile in New York. Then I read this blog entry. Now I’m not sure whether there are more pecans in New York or Chicago.
I read a semi-regular column called OK/Cancel, written by a couple of usability mavens named Tom Chi and Kevin Cheng. Each column is illustrated by a comic. They have some interesting and funny takes on usability of products generally as well as software.
Their current column is on Nokia phones and I found it interesting.
Many computer geeks have been aware of the fact that interacting with computers is more valuable to them than interacting with other people. The Register, not normally known for moralising on subjects other than stupidity in the computer biz, has printed this story about a school principal who has banned iPods in her school. The piece continues on the difficulties that society faces when we’re all immersed in our own worlds, iPodded to distraction, not interacting with other people at all. Very thoughtful, and I fear, about half right. The other half is that the world is so unfortunate and awful nowadays that people take refuge in their own iPod world in order to ensure that they stay well clear of the “real world”, whatever that is.
On Good Friday, as those of us who do such things ponder on life, death, and our relationship with each of those facts, perhaps taking off the iPod for a future Lenten discipline might be a good way of reconnecting with other people and exploring life as a society, and not as individuals alone.
(PS: I myself don’t own one, but as a commuter [when I am working] there are other means of shutting out other people when you’re in with a bunch of them, and they can be just as bad as wearing an iPod. So for those of us who don’t have one, I propose thinking about those other means instead.)
On a Jean Shepherd list I look at someone has just posted the lyrics to Bessie Smith’s “Kitchen Man”. Those were the days when the seven dirty words could get a performer banned from stage, screen, and radio, so singers and comedians had to use innuendo to get their message across. Here they are:
Madame Bucks was quite deluxe, servants by the score
Footmen at each door, butlers and maids galore.
But one day Dan, her kitchen man
Gave her his notice he’s through.
She cried Oh Dan don’t go! You’ll grieve me if you do!
I love his cabbage, crave his hash, crazy about his succotash,
I can’t do without my kitchen man!
Wild about his turnip tops, like the way he warms my chops,
I CAN’T do without my kitchen man!
Anybody else could leave, and I would only laugh!
‘Cause he means so much to me, and you ain’t heard the half!
His frankfurter’s Oh so sweet, how I love his sausage meat,
I can’t do without my kitchen man!
Oh how that boy can open clams, no one else can touch my hams,
I CAN’T do without my kitchen man!
When I eat his donut, all I leave is the hole!
Any time he wants to, he can use my sugar bowl!
His baloney’s really worth a try, never fails to satisfy,
I can’t do without my kitchen man!
His jellyroll is so nice and hot, never fails to touch the spot,
I CAN’T do without my kitchen man!
Not an off-colour word in the lot, but nonetheless one of the sexiest songs ever sung.
Some time ago, I came across a way to add non-livejournal blogs to my friends page. This was wonderful! I did it for one person, and then, a bit later, wanting to add some more non-livejournal friends, found that I’d forgotten how to do it and couldn’t lay my hands (electronic ones, of course) on the method.
I’m sure that among my friends is one kind soul who knows how to do this…please, pretty please, could you share the method with me? I’m finding a lot of blogstop blogs that I want to add, but can’t do it.
Thank you, thank you, and thank you too!
These include stories that involve people of colour, very poor people, or other disadvantaged people. The news editors who choose which stories to run often (consciously or not) run stories that remind themselves of situations in their own (usually quite white a privileged) lives.
Here is a story about a young gay black man in Brooklyn whose dismembered body has been discovered in the subway and in an industrial area. Thanks to towleroad for drawing my attention to it. There are a few more links on towleroad that give more background on the case.
Our lesbian/gay/bi/trans sisters and brothers need as much protection as everyone else, and when we are assaulted or murdered, the stories need to be as prominent as those for the assaults or murders of people of privilege.
I am presuming that a clique is a group of people all of whom have friended each other. If so, then here is mine:
A teenager mad at a schoolmate for putting peanut butter in his cheese sandwich (wha?) sent him a few “semen-frosted” brownies, which his friend shared with two mates. I’ve heard of frosting a chocolate cake with Ex-Lax, but semen?
Of course! Teenagers do produce a lot of semen, don’t they…I was wondering how he could get enough to do a thorough job.
Oh, and how did the guys figure it out? Was the taste, um, familiar?
If that’s something you’d like to read about, here‘s the article.
I think that the last paragraph is the funniest.
So if you’re thinking of a new service to start up and make a quick buck off of, try email to hospital beds. It might have helped the gentleman this guy was talking to on the CTA in Chicago.
For the first time since 1988, I do not have a job. I was made redundant (finally!) from Searchspace today. I am now free to do whatever I want for a while.
The golden goodbye was very lavish, and I could probably live off it for quite a while without working (as WL is employed and we don’t owe anyone anything). But I’m going to do some housework for two weeks, then get cracking on going back to Searchspace as a contractor. I might also travel somewhere just to get away. Haven’t decided where, though.
I’m grateful that I’m able to not worry about not having a job. I don’t have to worry about not having health insurance as I live in a civilised country that has universal health care free at the point of delivery. I may go stir-crazy, but I’m going to do my best not to.
I’m also going to find a charity that helps jobless people and give them a donation.
If you don’t like snakes, don’t read this one. I guarantee you’ll not sit on the toilet in the same way ever again.
The guys over in laidoffland like their bacon. This is a fake site, unfortunately, but quite funny. I presume the t-shirts are the only product, and you can’t get a baconwhore to actually drop by your pad and cook your bacon for you. Even if you could, they couldn’t do it in the nude because of the grease spatters. Darn!
Came across this entry in Ron’s Log…my friend George Keyes is a member of a group that has a monthly excursion to a restaurant for nude dining. The Yahoo story is here.
They specify no hot soup on the menu…wise.
My friends….I love ’em all (even the ones who haven’t friended me back!)
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Tonight I finally got my PDA talking to my wireless router, and yesterday I got my laptop to see the disk in our desktop, and vice versa. Woohoo!
The more technical oriented among us might feel this isn’t a heck of an accomplishment, but I’ve been struggling for 6 months with these problems.
So raise a glass or something…To Connectivity!
If you woke up and I was in bed with you, what would be your first thought?
Who’da thunk it? The Times of London has printed a gay engagement announcement, according to the BBC. I guess HWMBO and I will have to put one in the Guardian later on this year.
Was going to post this on
We had a “Valentine’s Day” lunch yesterday at Taro, a Japanese restaurant on Old Compton Street here in London. We wanted to eat in Chinatown, but of course the Dragon parade was going on in the afternoon and every gweilo family that could crowded in to see those quaint Chinese put on their culture show. Oddly enough, I had forgotten that this was CNY weekend (since I’ve been working three days a week my sense of time has decayed).
WL asked me if he should give me his card last night, and I said no. I’d bought mine and filled it out when I stopped in to work yesterday. I laid it on his plate for breakfast this morning. Mine was just a bit sappy, but his was so precious. There was a picture of a dog and cat sitting under a tree, dog’s paw around the cat’s shoulders. The caption read, “And another problem, my love, is that you too are a male.” Inside he wrote, “Fortunately it is not a problem ever since we met.” I’m so lucky.
This afternoon I made two banana breads (as we had some rapidly browning bananas). I used solid shortening rather than vegetable oil, and the batter was pretty lumpy, so I thought it would be two tins of disaster. But they came out really nice on the inside, if a bit tough on the outside.
I gave him a slice when he got home, “Sweets for the sweet.”
This tale is from someone who witnessed a suicide on the El in Chicago. It gives a unique view of how such events happen and the effect on those who witness it.
I’ve found this site, which was obviously created by someone who is either obsessed or who has too much time on his hands. I had trouble learning how to tie my shoelaces because I’m left-handed and I couldn’t tie right-handed very well. It took me well into 1st grade before I could tie them right-handed. My mother wasn’t up to showing me how to tie left-handed, you see. Now this site says that I didn’t have to go through all that heartache.
It’s off to the therapist for another session of parent-bashing, then. I’m still not recovered from the fact that all through school when our gym classes played baseball, I was batting right-handed (and failing to ever hit the ball) and no one told me it was the wrong way round. The last time I played, in high school, the gym teacher noticed that I wasn’t batting well and asked whether I was right- or left-handed. When I told him, he showed me how to bat left-handed and I did very well. Another major-league prospect nipped in the bud by you fascist right-handers!!!
(just kidding…)
(maybe…)
Deutschepost is really on the ball, as a postcard addressed to Hitler is finally delivered to the Bundestag, 60 years too late to catch him alive. The best quote is this:
Deutsche Post marked on the card that the address was incorrect and that the unidentified sender should be informed.
Without referring to Hitler directly, it added future mail should be sent to the German Bundestag, or Parliament.
The letter was stamped with, “Mail corrected due to insufficient address – please alert sender. Ascertained address: Deutsche Bundestag, 11011 Berlin,” according to the German DPA press agency.
I wonder who actually sent it….was it a dinner invitation from the Duke of Windsor? Perhaps a billet doux from Sir Oswald Mosely.
Deutschepost remarked that it had no right to remove mail from the system just because the addressee was dead.
The airwaves in the UK are crackling with the news that Prince Charles is to marry Camilla Parker-Bowles in April. Civil ceremony, so no Anglican fuss about remarriage of divorced persons in church. The news reports all imply that the fact that he’s divorced is the problem. It’s not. It’s that her former husband is still living.
Ho-hum. She’ll become a duchess, he’ll be legal, the Archbishop of Canterbury will bless the pair, and all’s well that ends well, I guess.
I wonder if she’ll start opening things and christening ships and such. When Brenda kicks the bucket, she’ll become the Princess Consort. Everyone’s wondering about that, but when he’s King he can issue a decree that will call her anything he likes.
I’m in favour of HRH Princess Horseface, myself.
Saccharine children’s books about God are ripe for satire.
Watch those atmospheric nitrogen levels, now.
I gather that in Danvers, MA, one phone call is enough to call off a drag fashion show in a school.
This link may only work on Monday 31 January so be quick if you want silliness.
This is the next town over from where I was brought up. I suppose the guy must have had a few under his belt to have done this.
http://www.thedailyitemoflynn.com/news/view.bg?articleid=8204
I see books being thrown at one priest, anyway. I would also hope that if a layperson did the same, he would be charged in the same way.
Priests shouldn’t be held to higher standards than laypeople are. If it’s wrong for a priest to do something, it should be wrong for a layperson to do it.
I’ve had a very busy week, but most of it wasn’t at work. Tuesday was the announcement of the new Bishop of Woolwich, in Southwark Diocese. We’ve gone from having a Neanderthal Evangelical maniac to having a moderate Catholic. This is good. He’s also unmarried, which took a bit of courage to announce. In fact, they didn’t announce it–Stephen Bates, the only reporter at the press conference (the rest of us were diocesan functionaries and lay leaders) asked the question and it was promptly answered. Sources tell me that no whiff of scandal has been whiffed from him, so that’s OK too. There hasn’t, so far, been the firestorm that surrounded Jeffrey John’s nomination to Reading.
Tuesday night and Thursday night saw other diocesan meetings I had to attend, and Friday I had a lovely lunch with Steve, my chum from ImagoQA, who now runs his own company. I’ll be working for him as a contractor after my current job is made redundant at the end of February. I’ll probably be working at my current employer’s five days a month or a bit more getting their ISO9001 up to speed. Steve will be billing this. In return, I’ll be getting a look in at some other work he has on offer. So that’s helping my mental state. I wouldn’t mind a spell of time with little or no work, as HWMBO is working now (and has just gotten a raise), we have no debts and we have money in the bank. All to the good. I’ll also have my month’s notice money and my redundancy benefit (
I met
I now know someone in Melbourne, Australia apart from my low-life ex-bf. HWMBO and I might even visit someday.
Well, according to the Sun here in the UK, the world is reeling at Prince Harry’s wearing a Nazi uniform to a fancy dress (=costume) party. I, for one, am not surprised, nor am I shocked. While these boys are in the public eye, they are also (by common admission) not the brightest bulbs in the chandelier. Inbreeding, plus moneyed upbringing, often produces thoughtless aristocrats.
I think there’s a wider question here: should costume shops actually be selling Nazi uniforms? If it’s wrong for him to wear one, it should equally be wrong for everyone else.
While I hold no brief for the Royal Family, carbuncles on the rump of Britain as they are, it’s unfair to castigate Harry alone for this–the only establishments that should be selling Nazi uniforms are those that supply theatrical and cinematic costumes for plays and films about the Nazi era. Other than that, let’s stick to fairies, sprites, cardinals, and other such merrier disguises.
If this is a real essay, I’ll eat my hat. However, it is hilarious and should be read, marked, learned, and inwardly digested by all.
Some of you may have read of the Google exploit were someone discovered lots of private webcams that were actually accessible over the net? Don’t want to plow your way through all that dreck? opentopia has made it easy with pages of thumbnails and ways to select your favourite country or just look at randomly selected cams. Try it now!
Non-Brits will probably not be familiar with the peculiar British art form of panto (short for “pantomime”). In short, it’s a popular fairy-tale put on for children at Christmastime, but with lots of convention, slapstick and standup comedy, and the like. It you’re interested in learning more about it, go to this website and click on “History” and then on “Aladdin” to find out what I saw last night.
My friend Alex from Singapore is a gymnast. One feature of most pantomimes is a gymnastic routine leavened with some slapstick. As he was getting bored with his high-paying job arranging conferences, he quit and started work in panto (but will blossom into a fine actor at some point). His first panto was “Aladdin”, and he asked me to come see it to support him.
Besides the gymnasts, there are several other characters that are stock characters. There’s the Widow Twankey, who is part of the genre of “Panto Dames”. These are always played by men in a very camp manner. Think of Mrs. Slocombe and her pussy being played by a man and you’ve got it. There’s the compere, whose name in Aladdin is “Wishy-Washy” (as he is Widow Twankey’s son and she’s a laundress) and who does a bit of stand-up (surprisingly topical) as well as some slapstick. There’s the villain, there’s a genie (in Aladdin, anyway), there’s a Princess, and lots of other supporting cast members.
Panto is really something for children and bored parents. People who were not born or raised here don’t often connect with the conventions. There is a lot of audience participation (the villain shouting “Yes it is!” and the auudience yelling back “Oh no it isn’t!”, or shouting to the Widow Twankey “It’s behind you!” when someone is creeping up on him…er…her.) But I was rather dismayed when the computer booking turned up a seat in the front row. That’s just looking to be picked on by the actors.
A lot of the humour is toilet humour (bound to appeal to the 9-12 year old set), but some is fairly sophisticated. Anyway, I was sitting in the front row prepared to sit through this just as a cultural experience that would help me to understand what it is to be British. The compere’s first stand-up routine started off with a silly joke about Americans. He prefaced it with “Any Americans in the audience?” and I raised my hand but not very high. He didn’t see me. The joke went past, and he then wandered to my side of the stage, stage left. He was making a joke about ugliness, and he looked around (they can only see the first few rows from the stage) and pointed at me and said, “Yes, ugly, kind of like you.” I shot back straight away, “And I’m American too!” Of course he corpsed and when he’d recovered asked me why I hadn’t raised my hand. I said that I had–he just hadn’t seen it. He continued and I thought: “Good–he’s not going to bother me again.”
After the intermission, Alex’s partner and another friend joined me in the front row. The compere’s second turn came around, and he was with the Empress on stage talking about how lovers talk to each other. He was trying to teach her about it. So he went up to the edge of stage right and said some stuff to a girl over there, who giggled predictably. Then he said to the Empress, leading her stage left: “Now you try!” and he looked at me and pointed–“Talk to him.” So the Empress bent over and said to me: “You want some honey, honey? You want some sugar, sugar?”
At that moment I knew how Thomas Huxley felt when Soapy Sam Wilberforce, the Bishop of Oxford, asked him (in a public debate in re evolution) whether he was descended from a monkey on his grandmother’s side or his grandfather’s side. Huxley turned to a friend and said, “God hath given him over into my hands.” and demolished Wilberforce’s arguments.
I looked her straight in the eye and said, as loud as I could, “I’m a diabetic.”
Instant “pantomonium”. They both broke up in laughter (as did the audience) and couldn’t go on for a few moments. Once they resumed, every couple of lines he’d point to me and say, “He’s a diabetic, you know.”
After the show we went backstage to collect Alex for the train back to London and met the compere and the actress playing the Empress. They were jolly good sports about it too.
I suppose I’ll have to go and see Alex in panto forever now…but I’ll try to sit in the back rows.
Copy, paste – bold everything you’ve seen, tten add one not on the list that you’ve seen.
After todc after maltlick after kechingray after stealthpup
01. Trainspotting
02. Shrek
03. Memento
04. Dogma
05. Strictly Ballroom
06. The Princess Bride
07. Love Actually
08. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings
09. The Lord of the Rings : The Two Towers
10. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
11. Reservoir Dogs
12. Desperado
13. Swordfish
14. Kill Bill Vol. 1
15. Donnie Darko
16. Spirited Away
17. Better Than Sex
18. Sleepy Hollow (presumably the Johnny Depp/Christina Ricci version)
19. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
20. The Eye
21. Requiem for a Dream
22. Dawn of the Dead (both versions)
23. The Pillow Book
24. The Italian Job
25. Goonies
26. BASEketball
27. Spice World (and I confessed! But only once — I have my standards)
28. Army of Darkness
29. The Color Purple
30. The Safety of Objects
31. Can’t Hardly Wait
32. Mystic Pizza
33. Finding Nemo
34. Monsters Inc.
35. Circle of Friends
36. Mary Poppins
37. The Bourne Identity
38. Forrest Gump
39. A Clockwork Orange
40. Kindergarten Cop
41. On The Line
42. My Big Fat Greek Wedding
43. Final Destination
44. Sorority Boys
45. Urban Legend
46. Cheaper by the Dozen
47. Fierce Creatures
48. Dude, Where’s My Car?
49. Ladyhawke
50. Ghostbusters
51. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
52. Back to the Future
53. An Affair To Remember
54. Somewhere In Time
55. North By Northwest
56. Moulin Rouge!
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
58. The Wizard of Oz
59. Zoolander
60. A Walk to Remember
61. Chicago
62. Vanilla Sky
63. The Sweetest Thing
64. Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead
65. The Nightmare Before Christmas
66. Chasing Amy
67. Edward Scissorhands
67. Battle Royale
68. Kill Bill Vol. 2
69. Fight Club
70. Clerks
71. The Crow
72. Get Real
73. Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s/Philosopher’s Stone
74. Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban
75. Wake
76. Silence of the Lambs
77. Pulp Fiction
78. The Crying Game
79. Amelie
80. Hedwig and the Angry Inch
81. Happy Campers
82. Velvet Goldmine
83. Elephant
84. Peter Pan
85. Camp
86. Particles of Truth
87. The Godfather
88. Big Fish
89. The Passion of the Christ
90. Close Encounters of the Third Kind
91. The Neverending Story
92. The Breakfast Club
93. Newsies
94. Princess Mononoke
95. The Prince of Egypt
96. Grease
97. The Hidden Fortress
98. Troy
99. It Happened One Night
100. Hackers
101. Dead Poets Society
102. Ghost Ship
103. The Wedding Banquet
104. The Red Violin
105. The Beach
106. The Women
107. Run Lola Run
108. The Quiet Man
109. X-Men
110. X-2
111. Spiderman
112. Punch Drunk Love
113. From Dusk ‘Til Dawn
114. Joe Vs. The Volcano
115. Meet Joe Black
116. Gregory’s Girl
117. In the Time of the Butterflies
118. The Butterfly Effect
119. Dirty Dancing
120. Final Destination 2
121. Rosemary’s Baby
122. Spider-Man 2
123. Practical Magic
124. A Shark Tale
125. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
126. Sweet Home Alabama
127. American Beauty
128. Rocky Horror Picture Show
129. American Psycho
130. American History X
131. The Forgotten
132. The Black Stallion
133. Secret Window
134. Anchorman: Legend of Ron Burgandy
135. Cellular
136. Mallrats
137. Mulholland Drive
138. Seeing Double
139. Clueless
140. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
141. Huit Femmes
142. Dumb & Dumber
143. Overboard
144. Tommy Boy
145. Talk To Her
146. Party Monster
147. Taxi Driver
148. Jackie Brown
149. Gods and Monsters
150. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera
151. How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
152. The Matrix
153. Doom Generation
154. Heathers
155. Sleepers
156. Gothic (Ken Russell)
157. 101 Rekjavik (Iceland)
158. Gandhi
159. The Salton Sea
160. Magnolia
161. Legend
162. Irreversible
163. Brazil
164. Party Girl
165. Duck Soup
I’m afraid that my education filmwise has been sorely neglected.
The BBC News website had an item on blogging at work. As luck would have it, I landed on Waiter Rant. Do have a look at the entry for December 28th. It’s a real hoot.
I rarely if ever mention anything about work in this place. First, because a lot of it nowadays is concerned with writing and collecting company procedures. Very dull to anyone who doesn’t work for my current employer. Second, everything else is very dull too. Perhaps when I’ve left I’ll remember something interesting and exciting and mention it. Otherwise, don’t worry, you’ve missed nothing.
In any case, it’s probably a good idea not to say much about one’s work on a blog, especially if you’re identifiable or the company is identifiable. Too many people have been dooced, which I understand means losing one’s job through an incautious entry about your work in your blog. I can’t figure out the etymology of dooce.
One hundred years ago, in 1905, Albert Einstein published five acaemic papers. Two of them, one on photons and one on relativity, were momentous in their effects. The one on photons ensured that the ether was no longer necessary as a carrier for light to get from one place to the other. The other, of course, has led to countless discoveries and the immortal E=mc2 (imagine that “2” as a superscript, please). Oddly enough, the one on photons won him the Nobel Prize in 1921, not the one on relativity. Even the Nobel committee doesn’t get it right all the time.
It’s reminded me of one of the few clean limericks I know, and I offer it here as a New Year’s gift, if you like.
Three marvellous people named Stein:
There’s Gert, and there’s Ep, and there’s Ein.
Gert’s poems are punk,
Ep’s statues are junk,
And nobody understands Ein.
The limerick refers to three giants of the twentieth century: Gertrude Stein, Jacob Epstein, and Albert Einstein.
So, later on, raise another glass (perhaps a Virgin Mary with a raw egg to counteract the alcohol of last night, should you have indulged) to relativity.
And also remember this April 17th, the fiftieth anniversary of Einstein’s death and the abduction of his brain.
I’m painfully aware that my many friends here have been posting merrily during the holiday season while I’ve remained officially mute. Some of this is due to the ennui that Christmas in England produces in many of the sons and daughters of St. George. The rest of it is due to my own indolence and mine and HWMBO’s desire to spend lots of time with each other this week as we are both off work. So, here we go with a megaupdate.
The run up to Christmas and the day itself were relatively quiet. We had ham, potatoes, turnip, and Brussels sprouts for Christmas lunch, with homemade squash pie for dessert (topped with a spoonful of Haagen Dasz). I am particularly proud of the squash pie: this delicacy is unknown here, where squash is invariable either mashed or roasted and served as a side dish. I used James Beard’s recipe and am happy to report that not only did the pie (and the pastry, praised be the goddess of pies!) come out well but we did not tire of it and consumed all of it, in contradistinction to the mince pie I baked last year, which although tasty was a bit too much for us and had to be discarded after a week or so. Another homage to my mother, who was a consummate baker of pies. Another speciality of hers was fudge, which I have not attempted as it would probably mean instant diabetic coma in my delicate condition.
We didn’t get each other any presents, formally, but have accompanied each other on shopping expeditions and have, at times, shopped alone. I am preparing for my Masonic initiation in February by today purchasing a white shirt, a black tie, and black socks. I shall have to purchase a black suit, good black shoes (I need shoes anyway.) and white gloves. I am led to expect that it will be a good experience but sartorially I shall be looking somewhat like a funeral director. No top hat, as far as I know. HWMBO has purchased shirts, shoes, and various other sundries. I’ve bought shirts, some computer equipment, and the like. Toys for boys, I guess. I think our shopping expeditions are probably over for now.
Boxing Day (December 26) brought the terrible news of the earthquake and tsunami in South and Southeast Asia. We considered going to Phuket last October but settled for Bintan Island in Indonesia instead. The waves did not reach Singapore or Bintan because of the Straits of Malacca and the island of Sumatra shielding them from the water. The news reports have been terrible. I cannot but think of the picture of eight smiling staff of a gay hotel in Phuket that I found on my hard disk a few nights ago. I wonder how many of them are still alive, and unhurt. Various people have been trying to extract meaning (invariably a religious one) from this event. The people of gothatesfags seem to think that it’s God’s revenge on the area. Others speak of the Godly activities of those caught up in the tragedy, both people who died, people who rescued and were rescued by others, and those who are digging deep into their pockets now. I resist attaching any religious meaning to it whatsoever. God didn’t direct the tectonic plate shift that caused the earthquake, S/He wasn’t punishing the inhabitants of the area and the tourists for Godless living, nor was S/He trying to make any point at all. Any meaning to it will be injected by people and extracted by them. The interdependence of the world’s areas comes to mind as one lesson to be learned. This is not on the order of a “butterfly beating its wings in England causing a tornado in India six months later” lesson in interdependence. This is interdependence in a real sense. The people of the region depend on us to visit their areas and spend money, to buy their products, to take in their migrants, and to ensure that our waste and pollution do not contribute to the flooding of their islands and coastlines. We depend on them to provide safe and comfortable places to stay in a generally felicitous climate, to produce things like oil, rubber, coconut meat and palm oil, and the natural beauty of the land and the people who live there. We are all responsible for each other.
HWMBO and I want to donate to the Disaster Emergency Committee here in the UK. I have been trying to donate through their website for four days. They have made it impossible so to do. The first try ended in failure after I had filled out the form: their servers were overloaded and couldn’t process the donation. At least, I hope they couldn’t: I’ve been checking to ensure that the message which I received to that effect was genuine and that the money hasn’t left our account. Evidently they realised that their servers were overloaded and switched to another collection service provider, as the form has now changed. However, the ineptness hasn’t left. The second and third time I filled out the form properly, with the correct Visa card number, and was told that my Visa card number was invalid. I tried it with and without spaces, and still it was said to be invalid. I’ve given up and will call in our donation later. But wouldn’t it be nice if for a change some software testing was done on such sites BEFORE a major event left them high and dry?
An interesting sidelight on the tragedy is that one of my pet peeves about the US is no longer unique to it. I have always noticed that, when there is a disaster of some sort in foreign climes, the US media are interested only to the extent of the loss of life suffered by US citizens. QUAKE IN EAST BUMLAND: 4 AMERICANS DIE! is the headline: only later in the story (sometimes cut by the editors) do you find that 100,000 East Bumlanders have also lost their lives. The British press is now going down the same road: while the total death toll is still high up in the story, the 27 British confirmed dead is a major part of the story, while it’s only 0.02126% or so of the current death total. I am presuming now that every country is for itself in this: the Scandinavians, according to the Grauniad, are going through major grief and trauma as many of the tourists were Scandinavians and their respective governments were slow to respond to the need for information to get to relatives and friends of the holidaymakers. The few celebrities (the grandson of the King of Thailand and a granddaughter and daughter of the broadcaster Lord Attenborough are the only ones that come to mind at the moment) are of intense interest. Our Prime Minister didn’t cut his holiday in Egypt short. This is another reason why Labour, who have left their roots and become the party of the nouveaux riches, should be defeated and returned into the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. Unfortunately, so should the Tories.
Even the least casualty of the quake is worthy of remembrance.
I have finished two books during the holidays, Cosmo Gordon Lang, by Lockhart, and Winnington-Ingram, by Carpenter. Lang was successively Vicar of Great St. Mary’s, Cambridge, Vicar of Portsea, Bishop of Stepney, Archbishop of York, and Archbishop of Canterbury from the end of the nineteenth to the middle of the twentieth centuries. He is generally only known for his odd name and for the fact that he had a part in the Abdication of Edward VIII, and made a broadcast after the event that sounded like he was kicking the man while he was down. He was much loved during his lifetime, and died on the pavement near Kew Gardens while rushing to the train to attend the House of Lords. Arthur Winnington-Ingram was Bishop of London from 1901 to 1939, and was also much loved and venerated. He had a “Catholic” feel about him, while being resolutely an Evangelical of the Old Skool: loving all his neighbours unconditionally and trusting all to be virtuous, even if they were scamps and scallywags and let him down in the end. Both these biographies had the feel of hagiography or panegyric. They were written soon after the deaths of their subjects, and many of those who were mentioned were still alive and kicking, so some references had to be quite guarded. Lang has been assumed to have been gay, and Winnington-Ingram was unmarried and very much a promoter of young men: he ordained more than 2200 men to the priesthood in his long career. However, neither biographer would have dreamed in the 1940’s that anyone would have thought that either prelate were homosexual. Reading them makes me wonder whether there’s a market for research into the first half of the twentieth century in the Church of England as regards her prelates and history. Perhaps I’ll get motivated to do something about this. Lang in particular is quite an interesting subject when placed in historical perspective.
We have seen two movies in three days: Before Sunrise, and The Incredibles. I enjoyed both: the animation in The Incredibles was excellent, and perhaps foretells a time when actors (except for their voices) are supernumeraries in the film world. Before Sunrise is an older movie (1995 or so) that was shown by our local art house, The Prince Charles Cinema in Leicester Square. We are both Life Members and saw the film for a grand total of
I believe I posted a bit of a rant a few weeks ago about people who discard CDs and manuals for their computer without realising that they might need them later. Here’s the rest of the story, as Paul Harvey would say.
Not having the CD for the Alcatel ADSL modem handy, we had to put Daz’s computer back on his old failing hard drive. After a few weeks, I decided that I’d look around for a better modem, and found an ADSL router for
after using a homemade device powered by a hand drill to pump beer into his stomach.. Thanks to Ron’s Log for pointing me to this one.
Depressed again after a visit to the doctor for diabetic blood test results. My blood sugar was elevated enough so that we’ve decided that the medication I’ve been on (metformin) is not totally up to the job. I’ve started on a new drug (not glybenclamide, but rosiglitazone) today that will hopefully bring my blood sugar down to a reasonable level.
Diabetes (type II) is a progressive disease–as you get older, your pancreas produces less insulin and as this happens your blood sugar level goes up and your system needs more help in getting the insulin you are producing to be effective. Ultimately it’s likely that I’ll have to inject insulin morning and evening. This would be a timed-release variety according to the doctor and thus I wouldn’t have to inject before every meal (which is a good thing). (Type I is juvenile diabetes and stems from an immune reaction to pancreatic cells that leaves the diabetic with no insulin to speaik of.)
This is of course quite depressing. On the one hand, I should be glad that medicine has advanced as much as it has in the treatment of diabetes. It is still a serious chronic disease that only gets worse over the course of your life. However, the days when you automatically went blind and lost your feet and legs, one toe and limb at a time, are mostly gone nowadays. There are now three families of pills to take for Type II that are only slightly liver-toxic, and I’ve tolerated the metformin (which my doctor surprised me about today by telling me that there are lots of stomach side effects that people report with it–I’ve had none of these) very well. But, time is creeping up behind me now.
I’ve also never been a really good patient. The pediatrician I was taken to when young was a beast, really. He was of the “treat the boys rough” school and didn’t tolerate his patients’ reacting to pain or anticipating it. He was also one of those people who, when something slight was wrong with you, but you were also fat, said, “Right, you’ve got an ingrown toenail. Lose some weight.” As a child you don’t have a lot of choice in what you eat (or didn’t in the 1950’s) and my mother did, I think overfeed me when I was a young child. Finally, inoculations back then were done with reusable needles. These were quite thick and caused a lot of pain. The needles used today are mere pipettes compared to those sewer pipes they used to use. He was very severe with children who didn’t care to be inoculated with those huge needles.
This all adds up to a huge case of white coat syndrome. When I lived in the Bronx, I only visited the doctor when I had an infection (my cat bit and scratched my arm once and I got quite a nasty one) or when my bronchitis got too difficult to live with. I then went to a doctor in Manhattan later on who misdiagnosed my erection problem as low testosterone and said that I could have a testosterone level blood test if I wanted. I said no and thus both he and I ignored what I believe was the first troublesome symptom of the diabetes. Now of course Viagra is my friend. I have had diabetic retinopathy which was treated in one eye by laser surgery and this necessitates an annual visit to the retinal clinic at St. Thomas’s Hospital. The feeling in my feet isn’t so good and I must be careful how I walk and examine them for cuts and blisters. When the doctor tries to take my blood pressure now we have to chat for a while before she puts the cuff on me as the blood pressure is always high when I visit until I’ve started to chat and become comfortable.
When my diabetes was finally diagnosed, in 1992 in Chicago, it came from the optometrist noticing that I had the diabetic retinopathy). When I went to the GP, he put me on glybenclamide for the diabetes and hydrochlorothiazide for high blood pressure. When I moved to San Francisco in 1993, the GP there took one look at the list of pills I was taking and said, “You shouldn’t be taking the hydrochlorothiazide–that’s very bad for diabetics!” and I had to switch to various medications and patches, none of which helped the blood pressure.
Finally, losing weight helped me to get my blood pressure down. But I was put on another diuretic (Lasix) and had been taking ACE-inhibitors since 1993. These continue. So I now take:
For those of you who are young, do yourselves a favour. Make sure that your diets are appropriate–low in fat, low in simple carbohydrates like sugar–and that you exercise regularly. While I still might have become diabetic eventually, such a diet would have helped me stave it off for longer. I believe I’ve had it for at least 16 years (judging from the impotence onset). I’d be joyful if I could last until 70 or 75. But had I exercised and been careful with what I was eating, I might not now have it at all.
But for me all that’s past now. I am determined to enjoy the time left to be and be as careful and cautious with my weight as possible. But, ultimately, we’ll all die and I know I’m not immortal. So all I can do is try to ensure that I take as good care of myself as I can.
Oh, and the packaging of all these pills is very wasteful, too. The new pills come in lots of 28 tablets, but the box is quite chunky. I managed to get 5 out of the 6 blister packs that came in the three boxes into one box. I realise they’re a bit safer than pillbottles, where the pharmacist has to count them out, but how wasteful is it when you have three boses and throw away two.
Note that this post is religious in tone. Do pass it by if you aren’t interested.
There’s been a lot of media attention directed toward Madame Tussaud’s Nativity scene with the effigies of various famous figures making up the tableau. Of course, as one would expect, some major and many minor ecclesiastical spokespersons have been spluttering about how disrespectful the scene is to Christianity. A patron yesterday punched the effigies of the Beckhams so hard that the scene has had to be closed. I don’t know whether they’ll repair them and reopen it or withdraw it, covered and dripping with the adoration of PR flacks everywhere. It was definitely tasteless, but that’s to be assumed for anything from Madame T’s.
Yesterday I preached at St. John the Evangelist, Larcom Street, the neighbouring parish to mine. They are relatively high up the candle as far as churchmanship is concerned, but the vicar is a good priest and the parish flourishes under his leadership. He occasionally invites me to preach (invariably in Advent or Lent) and then he invites WL and me to lunch at the Vicarage. While writing the sermon, the Nativity story surfaced and I thought of an angle I wanted to cover in the sermon. So, here is the first half of the sermon for your delectation.
“I’d first like to say a few words on Nativity scenes. We have, I’m sure, all seen the news reports and the pictures of the curious Nativity waxwork scene in Madame Tussaud’s this week. Church figures (mostly unnamed except for Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor, and no C of E bishops or archbishops among them) have condemned the museum for using the waxen bodies of some famous (or infamous) people to portray those whom the Scripture says were present at or around the birth of Christ. I’m sure you know who they all are-the Beckhams as Joseph and Mary, the three Wise Men as two politicians and an aristocrat, the shepherds as show business figures, all watched over by a singer as an angel.
“The publicist for the museum certainly earned a bonus with this stunt. Newspapers and webpages all over the world showed David and Victoria Beckham together watching over the manger. I don’t know whether you noticed, but David Beckham depicting Joseph was wearing two crosses around his neck-certainly putting Joseph in a bit of a time warp.
“While it may have been somewhat premature to put up a Nativity scene in Advent, society nowadays tolerates Christmas food and gifts on the shelves of supermarkets in October so what’s a little Nativity scene among friends?
“Why are some Church authorities denouncing all this as wrong? They seem to believe that depicting saints and Our Lord using famous characters from our own times, some of whom have had apparent morality lapses, somehow tarnishes the love and affection we have for those saints, and the worship that we owe and deliver to Our Saviour.
“I’d like to suggest to you that, far from diminishing our love and respect for those saints, Our Lady, and Jesus, it should actually give us hope. Goodness within all of us shines forth in our worship and in our lives, however much we may fall short of God’s expectations for us. This scene reminds us of that, and gives me hope that in my own small way, I too might be worthy to creep into this Nativity scene to adore the Christ child-not as a Wise Man and certainly not as Joseph, but maybe one of the shepherds. Not only did the museum’s public relations person earn a bonus that day-but people have been reminded of God’s call to holiness, repentance, and the hope of glory. That’s the kind of message that God and the Church have a hard time bringing to our sinful world today on their own, so it is very lucky that the wax museum has done it for them.”
I went on to talk about John the Baptist, but I’ll spare you that. The vicar said that the sermon was the best he’d heard in a long time. But, so that it didn’t go to my head, WL told me that he thought it was too long (at about 8 minutes? Some preachers are only finishing their introductory remarks at 8 minutes.) But of course WL is a free-thinker so just comes on these occasions to support me. I’m grateful for that.
I had to buy a clock radio yesterday, and decided to buy a DAB digital clock radio instead of the tried-and-true regular clock radio we all know and love (or hate, depending on how much of a morning person you are). I didn’t think that usability would be a problem, as clock radios have been around for a long time. The more fool I.
I had a brainstorm last night and wondered how Holmes and Watson would regard such a radio, and got up and wrote three pages on it. In order to spare people’s friends pages, I’ve quoted the first few paragraphs here and then included the link so that, if you think it worthwhile, you can go and read the rest.
“The following story is real, only the fictional names have been changed to protect the guilty. I apologise to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle for making the (not entirely unknown assumption) that Holmes and Watson were closer than he let on and lived to be somewhere in the region of 160 years old. On the other hand, I don’t apologise to the maker of the radio in question, as obviously they have a lot to learn about how people actually use their products.”
“The clock radio went off at 5:57 am precisely. Watson, always the military man in bearing and habit, stared at the ceiling until 6 am, when the Today program came on. Holmes, as was his wont, did not acknowledge that anything had happened at all. The news was the usual mix of scandals involving Cabinet ministers, wars, famine, natural disasters, and complaints. The welcome relief of the weather report washed over Watson has he prepared to arise and face another day. He sat up and reached over to switch off the radio. He pressed the switch. Nothing happened: John Humphrys continued to blithely interview a journalist. Watson was surprised and stabbed repeatedly at the switch. Nothing still.”
“Resignedly, Watson switched off the alarm itself and said, ‘Time to buy a new clock radio.’ Holmes grunted and turned over.” …
For the rest of this story, you may proceed to my web page here. I’m also glad I did, as I discovered a reference to my Demon email address that was unencrypted on one of my webpages and corrected that as well. In every cloud there is a silver lining.
Last week, being a normal work week here in the UK, was pretty abnormal in the Hansen-Tan household. We’ve had repairmen in to fix both the door intercom (which turned out to have burned out because our doorbell button stuck in the “on” position and burned out not only our buzzer but the transformer for the entire block) and the doorlock. On Friday I returned from Tesco’s to find that my key went in only 1/2 way on the outside door. I thought that someone had broken off a key in the lock, but no such luck: it was some problem with the tumbler pins that necessitated taking the entire latch mechanism out (so that we wouldn’t be locked out of our own homes) and a Monday return with a new lock. The landlord proposed getting non-duplicatable keys, but this would mean that HWMBO, our friend Mark across the street who looks after our flat when we’re not around, and our two guest key sets wouldn’t have a front door key, as they’ve had to change the lock to a different key. I raised holy hell, and they backed down.
Enough of domestic matters. I was mildly amused that our Home Secretary, David Blunkett, the protector of the nation’s security and a perennial opponent of lesbian and gay rights (he’s a Methodist lay preacher who has voted against equal ages of consent for straight and gay people, for example) has been nobbled by his former lover for, reportedly, putting the fix in so that her nanny (who is a Filipina) could get expedited indefinite leave to remain. He claims that he merely checked the form for completeness (immigration and naturalisation is in his department). However, I would be quite surprised if he had the technical knowledge to be able to ensure that the form was complete. Blunkett is also involved in a paternity dispute with this woman. Her husband (yes, Blunkett was committing, gasp! adultery!) wishes to keep the children and has acknowledged them as his, even though Blunkett’s paternity of one has been proven by a test. I am hopeful that he will be forced to resign from the government, as he has been a intemperate opponent of individual rights and a champion of the government’s right to protect us through removing our civil rights one, by one, by one, until we have nothing left but security from attack.
In France, of course, this kind of thing wouldn’t raise the political temperature one tenth of one degree. Mitterand managed to have a wife, a mistress, and a daughter by the mistress all at his funeral. He kept the mistress and daughter out of the public eye during his lifetime. No one batted an eye. Here, on the other hand, we’ve had scandal after scandal, some involving sex (the Labour MP who put his ad on gaydar, complete with a picture of him in y-fronts; the Tory MP who was found naked and dead hanging by a garter belt with an orange in his mouth, probably a victim of an autoerotic asphyxiation; the Prime Minister (John Major) who had a long-running affair with another Tory MP (Edwina Currie of salmonella fame); several Tory MPs who had affairs and second families; Boris Johnson, the current Tory scandal, who had an affair with another staff member at his day job, the Spectator magazine, and I could go on and on and on) and some involving money or contributions (the Tory MP who took money in brown envelopes from Saudis; the Labour MP also a cabinet minister twice, who was sacked twice for money scandals and is now a European commissioner; the scandal involving contributions to Labour from Bernie Ecclestone coupled with an exemption from cigarette advertising bans for Formula 1 racing, and I could still go on and on). Some of these scandals involved people from the last Tory parliament, by the way, but some of the subjects of interest are still active in politics.
In general, Tories were involved in sex scandals and Labour with money scandals. I often felt that this is because Tories were much better at economics than sex, and Labour was much better with sex than economics. However, now that Labour has been in power for 7 years, the tide seems to be turning.
The moral of the story is: if you’re going to preach morality to the public, you’ll be caught with your pants down. If you’re going to preach economic rigour to the public, you’re going to be caught with your hand in the cash register. So it’s probably good not to preach, but to lead by example. Not that it will ever happen.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, issued an Advent message over the weekend that, among other items, condemned homophobic and inflammatory remarks from Anglicans worldwide in the wake of the recent dust-ups over ordaining practicing gay bishops and blessing same-sex unions. He cited the case of the gay man who was brutally kicked to death on the Embankment only about 1/2 mile from Lambeth Palace as an example of what homophobia in society promotes. Too little, too late. He’s giving us a drop of comfort while society permits homophobia to reign almost unchecked. The conservative Anglicans, of course, denounced Williams for saying that opposition to lesbian and gay clergy and same-sex union blessing was homophobic–they’re only following the Scriptures, they say. Williams wasn’t saying that principled objections to these matters was homophobic–he was denouncing statements such as the one from the Archbishop of Nigeria, Peter Akinola, who recently said that homosexuality was something that was not found anywhere else in the animal kingdom. This is a manifestly false statement, of course. Williams has lost the plot, and is trying to regain it but cannot keep up. In my opinion, he’s the worst Archbishop of Canterbury in 100 years (even worse than Cosmo Gordon Lang, who kicked the Duke of Windsor while he was down after the Abdication). He should resign immediately and return to academe, where his theological insights were worth their weight in gold. He is not up to the task of administering the Church of England or the Anglican Communion.
Internally, he must be terribly conflicted, since his often-expressed opinions on the morality of same-sex relationships conflict with the public opinions he is bound to express as Archbishop. This kind of conflict puts a tremendous strain on even the most healthy mind, soul, and spirit.
The good news, however, is that the intercom has been fixed as I write. The door next, I hope.
(just a bit later)
The door is fixed and 4 out of the 6 flats have their keys. Now for another installment of that long-running series “The Southwark and Newington Church of England Deanery Synod”, starring yours truly and the Rural Dean.
Since I began posting to livejournal, I’ve noticed that I’m no longer posting as much to soc.motss. Some may believe this is a pretty good thing, as I try not to get involved in pissing and shouting matches and just contribute lighthearted links (when I find them) or posts on some of the subjects on which I consider myself knowledgeable (religion, the Episcopal Church, the Roman Catholic Church, dual citizenship, and the like). I have a lorra lorra people in my kill file, which is not something you’re supposed to say in soc.motss but which I will claim the privilege of saying outside it.
I’m not sure whether I like this or not; I enjoy some of the people in soc.motss and will be hosting at least one in a week’s time (alas, he’s not on lj). The atmosphere here in lj is much mellower, much less annoying, for some reason. And the friends I’ve collected (not all have collected me as a friend, but no matter) are always interesting and fun to read and interact with. That’s not always true in other venues.
So what’s been happening in the last week or so? Well, I went to a Masonic evening as part of a Mensa contingent last Wednesday. I have been considering joining up for a long time, even from before my brother joined a few years ago. I realise that people might find this an odd thing to do, but I feel it’s going to be interesting and challenging at the same time. I’ve been in organised religion for 45+ years (ever since I said my first “Ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meum.” at the altar at the age of 6 or 7) and it’s become part of my life. However, I feel that something else out there might also be interesting in that way. I see Freemasonry as perhaps that something.
If I were to out myself as a prospective Mason in some of the other venues I inhabit, I’d get a lot of stick and probably some derision. I am presuming that derision won’t be forthcoming from my small circle of friends. I will be initiated at the end of February and will then have some idea of what it’s all about. Oh, and if you’re someone who thinks that Freemasons, the Knights Templar, the Rosicrucians, and aliens from the Planet Zog are all conspiring together to take over the world, forget it. It ain’t true. Once I’ve done some more research I’ll put some Masonic links in here if people are interested. Now to get out and buy a black suit, white shirt, and Craft tie.
Our bosom buddy Paul was over from Detroit for a week beginning a week ago last Sunday. He is jolly, well-travelled (600,000 air miles in his account, last time he looked), and a great raconteur. We were thrilled to host him again for a week, and hope to see him again at the beginning of June. Paul is responsible for much of the growth of the National Association of Black and White Men Together/Men of All Colours Together in the United States. He supported new chapters while they were in formation, and was a valued person on its board. He is one of the most sensible, forthright (he calls a spade a bloody shovel), and practical people I know. He’s currently struggling with a health difficulty and wondering about which therapy to choose. I hope and pray that he chooses the right one so we can have him around for a few more decades.
During the dinner at the end of the Masonic evening I came down with one of the worst sinus headaches I’ve ever had. It was located in my left jaw, and radiated down into my shoulder. I was miserable. I had to call in sick on Thursday and didn’t feel 100% until Friday evening.
Back to lj: I have been wondering what the next big thang will be. Usenet came first, then email bounce lists, then instant messenger programs. Will blogging replace them all?
is not the fact that most of them are homophobic (although that’s a good one to start off with). It’s the air quality.
Mackerel-snappers and Anglicans too high up the candle (so to speak) take note!
A Bulgarian farmer bought a pig for stud purposes, but ended up making him into sausages because the pig was gay.
How apt. I wonder if they were short links or monster kielbasies?
stolen from boyshapedbox
(A) First, recommend to me:
1. a movie:
2. a book:
3. a musical artist, song, or album:
(B) I want everyone who reads this to ask me three questions, no more, no less. Ask me anything you want.
(C) Then I want you to go to your journal, copy and paste this allowing your friends to ask you anything & say that you stole it from me.