Random Playlist Song: Bach - Mass In B Minor, Bwv 232 - Symbolum Nicenum (Credo) - V. Crucifixus (Basler Madrigalisten - Hans-Martin Linde)
on budak's recommendation: "Much less overblown musical hyperbole and enough twists and turns (and musical riddles) to keep mathematically-inclined musicologists awake for nights."
Nah, I'm a plebian. I only listen to music for its aesthetic value *g*
Bach's Mass in B Minor as Musical Icon, J.S. Bach's Mass in B Minor
Random Trivia bit: Richard & Betty James created that coil- like toy The Slinky in 1943. Actually he invented it and his wife Betty came up with what to name it.
Mr. and Mrs. James developed it in 1948. He was a successful mechanical engineer and discovered the toy completely by accident. Betty got the job of naming it, doing that after a word of Swedish origin meaning 'stealthy, sleek and sinuous'. It has become multiply-used as it went. The simple little Slinky has been used in pecan picking devices in Texas and Alabama, on lighting fixtures in Harrah's Casino in Las Vegas (because of the unusual shadows it casts), as drapery holders, bird repellers, therapeutic devices, gutter protectors, even makeshift radio antennae in the Vietnam war!
(Balderdash 2)
***
I was in Orchard Road again today at about 5pm and on my way to Screwed Up Girl's Barbeque, when I saw that the Angels were at work again. Since I had my camera handy, I managed to get off a few shots.
Today there were 4 of them. 3 were hiding behind the banner relacing one corner while one was busy ambushing people asking for donations. I noticed that the one whom I had talked to the previous day kept peeking at me from behind the banner.
(Apologies for the bluriness of this photo. I could've done better definitely, but I don't have the patience of a Pro Photographer, and taking pictures of people is harder than taking pictures of scenery. For one, it's more awkward looking like a cheekopeh / cheekopeh on Orchard Road)
So I went up to talk to her, and in doing so, I noticed that one of the new angels had dyed hair (so much for my theory) and was (perhaps justifiably) giving me weird looks. She said that she knew I was from NUS, because she'd seen my matriculation card when I'd opened my wallet the previous day (damn, there goes my evil plot). So maybe one day in NUS, if/when she volunteers for some other charity project, I'll be accosted and asked to donate. I asked if she minded the humiliation, and she said that it was a good cause. Of course; anything for charity!
So after that I went to ambush the sole angel preying on passers-by.
And then I got her attention and she posed for me. I then gave her a most generous (if I do say so myself) 70 cent donation.
Most importantly, I got her name from her certificate and school (RJC) from her, so I can write the letter to the school with glowing words of praise! Now to decide how to phrase it. To talk about Good Old Asian Values or not to talk about Good Old Asian Values?
PS: Despite what Andrew Gan might have you think, I never asked them for their names or their phone numbers. So there.
Courtesy of Alwyn: An exclusive study in voyeuristic photography. Unfortunately, he violated one of the seminal rules of voyeuristic photography: Always get the face of your subject.
2 more pictures of the angels on his blog.
Christie said that she'd seen the angels previously, but thought that they were giving out perfume samples, so she avoided them. Heh.
***
"I was thinking of going to the NUS pool immediately after that to swim by myself. I rationalised that since it was the holidays, the pool would probably be quite empty.
I swear, I had my gear all ready in a backpack, shampoo, towel and all. I even wore my swimming costume underneath my outfit of T-shirt and gym pants. I was all ready to conquer the pool, in honour of the days when I was a lean, mean swimming machine (though fortunately, without the broad shoulders and flat chest).
I walked over to the NUS pool and stopped short at the cafe positioned strategically next to the pool.
A gaggle of guys were sitting, facing the pool, presumably to check out any delectable female flesh on display. Not only that, but the pool was filled. With guys, mostly.
I decided, since I was all geared up, I shouldn't let my self-consciousness defeat me. I took a deep breath and took one step forward.
At that exact moment a bunch of skinny beanpoles, the kind that cannot fill out the tops of bikinis unless they stuff the cups with socks, and with protruding rib cages and protruding pelvic bones, but which, conversely, men find so perversely chio, came sauntering out of the changing rooms in various 2-piece outfits, much to the delight of the guys sitting at the cafe (judging by the twinkle in their eyes, visible even to me standing 2 metres away).
I thought of my utilitarian one-piece Speedo swimsuit that had served me faithfully for years, both in competitive and leisurely swims, and my rolls of fat, and my doughy, cellulite-dimpled thighs, and I decided that even my added advantage of real boobs and cleavage would not be enough to defuse the humiliation should I have to walk out and swim before these guys.
I slunk away home, head down in disappointment."
(Sheena's Little Fragments of Time)
I thought guys like girls with more meat.
***
budak on the right to speak and the right to be slimed: "If faith-based arguments can be used to shape national agendas, why should anyone not be allowed to freely question, deconstruct, demolish and even lampoon the very assumptions, underpinnings and inconsistencies that religious lobbies harbour and shield from criticism under the cloak of infallible spiritual authority and communal harmony?"
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I may be in bad company, but this law [on speech inciting religious hatred] will not work
"A similar law in Australia ended up driving the courts to despair as mad evangelical Christians and extreme Muslims sued and counter-sued, endlessly reporting one another's hate-speech. The director of the Australian Muslim Public Affairs Committee, Amir Butler, had supported a religious hatred law until, he told the Melbourne Age: "At every Islamic lecture I have attended since litigation began there have been small groups of evangelical Christians with notepads and pens jotting down any comment that might later be used as evidence in future cases."
This will be a bad law, inflaming, not calming, religious passions. Prosecutors will not have to prove a breach of the peace occurred, nor that one was likely, nor even that one was intended. The law does not define what religion is: it never has, leaving the wretched charity commission to decide that, for instance, Odin worship is religion and tree-hugging paganism is not. The Bible and Qur'an are full of incitement to hatred of other faiths. I have experienced how any criticism attracts an outraged charge of "Islamophobia" as a synonym for racism - which it is not. Now the Pope is demanding that the UN general council next week include Christianophobia in its monitoring. No more Posh and Becks as the holy couple in Madame Tussauds, then. Already self-censorship on religion is rife."
The left's retreat from universal human rights
"Liberal humanitarian values are under threat. Much of this threat comes not from the far right but from the left's moral equivocation and compromises. Sections of progressive opinion are wavering in their defence of universal human rights. In this era of post-modernism and live-and-let-live multiculturalism, moral relativism is gaining ground. This holds that every community is different, and there are no eternal humanitarian values. In the name of "cultural sensitivity", we are expected to respect other people's religious beliefs and ethnic traditions. But sometimes this means colluding with religious-inspired barbarisms like female genital mutilation...
The threat of being labeled "Islamophobic" is inducing a new wave of moral paralysis, as evidenced by the way most leftists ignore the role of fundamentalist Islam in the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan, where racist Islamists are exterminating the black African population.
We see similar double standards in Britain when many left-wingers fail to speak out against the sexism and homophobia of organisations like the Muslim Council of Britain, the Islamic Human Rights Commission and the Muslim Association of Britain."
***
World's Biggest Santa Gathering Turns Nasty
"The world's biggest gathering of Santa Clauses has ended in a mass brawl.
CS spray and batons had to be used to break up the fighting Santas.
Some 4,200 people dressed as Father Christmas gathered in a small Welsh town for a charity festive fun run. But it turned into festive fisticuffs after some of the Santas headed to the pub for a seasonal tipple.
The goodwill evaporated, to be replaced with around 30 Santas swapping punches. Five St Nicks were nicked by police."
***
The Common Sewer: Satire/Parody
"Satire is an exaggerated imitation of people or institutions, which tries to show them to be ridiculous or evil. Parody is the adaptation of literary tendencies (often exaggerated) to unsuitable matter. Swift’s Modest Proposal is clearly both a satire (on cold-blooded economists) and a parody (of their mode of writing and reasoning). These lines of Pope are satire but not parody"
I think his definition of satire is too strict. If pressed, I'd say that parody imitates the form of something to lampoon it, while satire more imitates or plays on its content.
My correspondents suggest that parody is meant to be funny, and is easier to execute, while satire isn't and is harder. Not always true, but that holds often enough.
"satire is dry. parodies are wet" - wth?! Supposedly this means that parodies are meant to be funny, while satires are meant to be darkly funny.
A nebulous distinction, this.
***
Top 10 Blog Design Guidelines
#5. Hard-to-read text
You write so well that you shouldn't make it too easy for your readers to read your writings - make them work for it. An easy way to do that is to use tiny fonts, which also makes your blog design look cool. Plus you don't want those old and farsighted geezers reading your blog, do you? Or use low-contrast text that blends nicely into the background. When your readers work hard to read your posts, boy, will they appreciate your words so much more.
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Some Abstinence Programs Mislead Teens, Report Says
"Many American youngsters participating in federally funded abstinence-only programs have been taught over the past three years that abortion can lead to sterility and suicide, that half the gay male teenagers in the United States have tested positive for the AIDS virus, and that touching a person's genitals "can result in pregnancy," a congressional staff analysis has found."
An anonymous commenter adds:
the recent survey of "Christian" abstinence-only literature in the US also had a whole bunch of really incredible stereotypes involving gender roles. According to the Washington Post, "Some course materials cited in Waxman's report present as scientific fact notions about a man's need for "admiration" and "sexual fulfillment" compared with a woman's need for "financial support." One book in the "Choosing Best" series tells the story of a knight who married a village maiden instead of the princess because the princess offered so many tips on slaying the local dragon. "Moral of the story," notes the popular text: "Occasional suggestions and assistance
may be alright, but too much of it will lessen a man's confidence or even turn him away from his princess."" (See WaPo Dec 1 or Google "Waxman abstinence survey". I would post the link but don't know if it would screw up the formatting.) So much for
the feminism of the abstinence-only brigade. But you probably knew that :).
Anonymous: Actually the top search results on Google are of conservatives *dissing* the Waxman report, so.
***
Four Academic Plagiarists You've Never Heard Of: How Many More Are Out There? - "Among the cases we found were a political scientist who swiped five pages of his book from a journal article, a historian who cribbed from an unpublished dissertation, and a geographer whose verbatim copying appears to span his lengthy career. While this article delves into a few cases we uncovered, our reporting suggests that what we found is not exceptional. Indeed, an editor at History News Network receives so many tips about purported plagiarism that he now investigates only those involving well-known scholars"
Santa Claus brings much more than tradition to Asia - "Retailers have learnt that Santa Claus brings something more valuable than tradition: people willing to spend money, and shops and shopping malls in major cities across the region aggressively promote the occasion."
How can I trust Firefox? - FUD from a Microsoft employee. His only valid point is that Firefox extensions and binaries aren't signed, but how many programs and files on the net are signed, really? Besides which, there is malware / scumware that's signed - a file being signed is no indication of its safety.
Sex visits at nursing homes - "Most homes would do it if asked. It is part of our job to make sure people are socially and sexually and emotionally happy and healthy."
Jello treat gets Jefferson Parish 4th-grader suspended - "Eight-year-old Kelli Billingsley brought homemade Jell-O cups to school at Boudreaux Elementary. Her mom says the school tested the Jell-O and determined it didn't have any alcohol in it. But the school suspended the girl for having a look alike drug."
Santa encourages good morals - "Teaching children about Santa is a useful ace up a parent's sleeve as it encourages their moral development as they believe he knows which children are good or bad"
Business student invents glow-in-the-dark underwear - "Beau Carpenter, an avid runner who also works at NASA, initially thought of creating glow-in-the-dark jogging clothes, but practicality evaporated when thongs captured his attention during his Internet research. He enlisted Chris Harris, an electrical engineering student at Rice, and Marcus Brocato, a chemistry lab manager at the Houston private university, to develop the GloThong. "Being guys, it didn't take us long to gravitate to them... my co-workers find it endlessly entertaining.""
CUM VS MOISTURIZER - Vice Settles the Score! - "People have been telling me that cum gets rid of zits since I was sixteen years old. I remember my best friend Caroline saying, “It works. Look at me, I always get it on my face and I don’t have any zits.” She also insisted that if she didn’t have a boyfriend after a while she would break out. The verdict was that swallowing it was pretty good but nothing got rid of zits like getting it on your face."
I can't believe anyone would actually perform this kind of experiment.
Fake Or Not.com - "My creators and i have set up a little, but exciting game. See if some tits are boobs (fake) or breasts (not). Now you can show the world your meat-expertise!"
I can never get all correct... Damn. Maybe some of the "fake" breasts are of post PrettiBosom customers, so the enhancement isn't so obvious!