Tipoff: "Oh my God they're playing the Ding Dong Song on WKRZ 91.3... Oh... you touch my tralala..."
Gunther has come to Singapore!
***
Web helps dad, daughter
Hong Kong - A father in southern China assumed an internet persona to put his wayward daughter back on the straight and narrow, a news report said on Wednesday.
Xiao Li, 15, had no idea she was really communicating with her father Zhong when a character called Big Cabbage began sending her messages through the popular ICQ chat rooms.
Zhong used the ploy when he was unable to stop his daughter's truancy, fighting, hanging out in internet bars and getting drawn into drugs, according to the Hong Kong edition of the China Daily.
The father, from Liuzhou, in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, built up a rapport with her under his Big Cabbage persona and began passing on pieces of wisdom to make his daughter mend her ways.
When Xiao discovered it had been her father chatting to her all along, she was touched and promised to change her ways by starting out with a clean slate, the newspaper said. - Sapa-dpa
***
Finding the Speed of Light with Marshmallows - "This works in my physics class, often with less than 5% error. Then the students can eat the marshmallows."
OMG. Why couldn't we have done this in Physics class?
Nurse charged with trying to kill wife - "Trained to take care of the sick and injured, a Rusk County registered nurse stands accused of trying to murder his wife with a romantic bubble-bath electrocution... Wolfe tried to kill his wife Teresa by knocking an electrical appliance into the bathtub in which she was bathing."
Man Allegedly Puts Xanax In Co-Worker's Coffee - "The co-worker dropped the Xanax into her coffee as a practical joke to 'calm her down' because she was 'too hyper'"
Student wins prize with window strip - "A dance student has won an arts prize by undressing in a charity shop window. Iona Dudley-Ward spent 90 minutes trying on outfits in the window of the Oxfam shop in Brighton town centre."
Feed the Worms Who Write Worms to the Worms: The economic logic of executing computer hackers - Ouch.
Classical music's contemporary crossover
Inspired by The Day After Tomorrow - "An unholy alliance between greedy but smart (and subsidized) big chemical manufacturers and utterly doltish but ideologically fevered environmentalists cajoles Uncle Sam into banning all research on genetically modifying crops in ways that make them naturally resistant to pests. With this research halted by government, pesticides produced by the heavily subsidized chemical companies (who are also protected from foreign competition) pour into the water supply, poisoning millions. Frightened out of their minds, young mothers take to the streets en masse, rioting so violently that the Peachtree Plaza Hotel, the Grand Old Opry, the Superdome, and the Seattle Space Needle all crash violently to the ground, killing tens of thousands, including a brilliant young researcher who was just hours away from discovering the cures for cancer, AIDS, and acne."
***
"Hi, my name's Michelle, would you like a blowjob?"
Shawn, quoting himself on a "bizarre impersonation of CJC's Orientation".
Don't ask me, it's pretty bizzare to me too.
L'origine de Bert
Tuesday, June 01, 2004
Whenever I think that I have plumbed the depths of human depravity, I am exposed to new horrors to chill my soul.
On Monday, I visited the former Poor Suffering Substantive Third Sergeant, shortly before that a Poor Suffering Local Third Sergeant, the Self-Proclaimed 'Master of Office', Top Bio Student in NJ in His Year, the Master of the Chair, He Who Cackles Evilly, the Hawker of Evil Torture Devices (more on that later) - (name removed by request).
Since his glorious ORD day, he has been deprived of his lucrative slave penance, and due to his various extravagances (among them a $50 Nike lycra shirt which he never wears in front of me anymore since I kept making fun of his fondness for it), he has found himself in a state of penury and thus been reduced to finagling innocent visitors to the World Book Fair on behalf of a company that shall remain unnamed. Of course, but for the odd commitment (eg Monday's "An Evening With Friends" - the ACJC choir concert, and incidentally an all too common name for various products/events), a general preference for bumming and my not having gotten my IC back yet, I might be joining him in foisting unwanted products onto fair visitors.
Ironically enough, Ban Xiong has not seen the fair, and likely will not, since he is stationed outside the exhibition hall. He thus asked me to serve as his eyes and ears, and in an act of beneficence, I assented to his not unreasonable request.
The World Book Fair is grossly misnamed. I was entertaining vague notions of reading Skaldic poetry, but they were mercilessly crushed upon my entrance into the halls, for it soon became apparent, from the preponderance of Chinese signs, products and displays (just possibly outnumbering those in English), that this was a Chinese Book Fair (now, to be fair I did see a "Malay/Muslim" Book Section, but it was tiny), with mainly Chinese companies from China, Taiwan and Singapore setting up shop. This is what happens when naming is left up to people with a Sino-Centric world view who take China (the middle of the world, after all) and the Chinese diaspora to represent the world. We see something similar happening across the Atlantic with the "World Series" (Baseball).
There was also a surprising number of publishers of religious books that put in an appearance: Ahmadiyya Muslim Mission, Bethesda Book Centre, Ch'an Yun Buddhist Handicrafts & Trading, Deva Crown Trading Pte Ltd, Fo Guang Shan (Singapore), Guangxi Publications Imp & Exp Co, Jen Chen Buddist Book Publisher, Popstar Media, Shalom Christian Media, Shun Da DIY Handicrafts & Trading, Singapore Soka Association, Still Thoughts Cultural Services, Supreme Master Ching Hai Asso, True Buddha Publications, Vaidurya Media House, Xi-An Bookstore, Yuen Jue Zheng (Singapore) c/o Kang Bao Lek Vegetarian and Zen Buddist Culture Services Center (from the official website). As could be predicted from the Chinese character of the fair, most of the religious content was Buddhist in nature. I would stop here, but I saw at one booth something that I never thought I would have the misfortune so see in Singapore - a banner advertising the book, Answers In Genesis.
Now, matters of religion are debatable, but Answers In Genesis holds that the bible is literally true down to the last word and infallible. It affirms the obviously suspect traditional authorship of the Pentateuch. If that isn't ridiculous enough, it asserts that the earth is only a few thousand years old. To its credit, it pooh poohs some of the more ludicrous Creationist arguments, but retains many more, so it remains a collection of fudges, false information, disingenuous arguments and rhetoric disguised as evidence (eg: We know that the earth is less than 10,000 years old because the bible says so!). I would have bought the book, if for nothing else, then to laugh uproariously and work myself into a stage of righteous moral and intellectual outrage, but my slave penance will be cut in less than 2 weeks, so I cannot afford (too many) frivolous purchases.
Thus, with my hopes dashed, spirit distraught and head down from the double blow, I then trekked across the length and breadth of the exhibition halls to seek out the Useful, the Interesting, the Educational and the Grotesque, and was struck dumb by the abundance of the last.
For a Book fair, there was a surprising amount of non-book items: music CDs, educational CD-ROMs, toys, videos, handicrafts, herbal supplements, exercise equipment and assorted accessories. In one corner was a stall extolling the benefits of the "Shichida method" of mucking with your children's minds. At another side was a booth selling transparent rattles containing luminous, rotating neon strips (I kid you not) - the perfect party toys for Ah Bengs. A prominent sign at another area preached the benefits of their "Musk Hemorrhoid Suppository".
And near an exit was sold "body slimming wear" using "the special lycra spandex", which the banner claimed was widely used by doctors. A closer look at this dubious sounding claim revealed that the "special lycra spandex" is used by doctors to cover post-surgery wounds so no scar will form on the wounds' healing. What that had to do with slimming, I could not figure out. Perhaps the most amusing thing was the "no bra" feature that was touted as enhancing the bustline. Presumably, if your body shrinks after being clad in lycra shrink wrap, but your breasts stay the same size, your bustline will appear relatively larger.
At another part of the hall was a booth with 5-in-1 air processors, the 5 functions being:
1) "Ice cooling effect" (the air coming out of the contraption didn't feel very cold to me)
2) Air purification
3) Humidification (local air is already dreadfully humid, and if you use it in an air-conditioned room, the air will already be cool and pure)
4) Essential oil diffusion
5) Ionisation, releasing 10,000 ions (or thereabouts) into the air for a "waterfall fresh air environment" (wth?! More likely you'll get zapped by the ions)
Dazed by the sheer perversity of all that I had witnessed, I stumbled back in a daze to where Ban Xiong was happily conning innocent souls and related some of the horrible sights that I had witnessed. I then noticed that there were some suspicious looking items in a glass case beside Ban Xiong's counter. Inside were 2 evil torture devices, which he informed me would be mine with a one year subscription to a SPH newspaper. The more sadistic looking of the two was the "Owell eye massager model OW-700". The display claimed that the massager brought a panoply of health benefits, but I noticed the proliferation of qualifiers like "can" and "may", eg: "The OW-700 can help stimulate eye acupoints" (emphasis added). The only claim to which no qualifier was tacked was about benefits which could be due to the placebo effect; among others, reduced eye fatigue. Sneaky, the way they pre-empt disputes about the device's claims. Intrigued, yet simultaneously disgusted, I took a closer look.
From the outside, the device looks like a pair of futuristic, if bulky-looking, glasses, reminiscent of the visor worn by Georgi LaForge in Star Trek and possibly worth wearing for a stroll down Orchard Road. The device is strapped to the head with velcro straps that attach to moulded plastic, which forms the frame of the device. Above where the eyes would be, holes have been drilled in the plastic, to be covered by thin black perforated sheets. A control unit with 2 slide switches (yes, I actually went to check out what they are called) to control the device is mounted above the bridge of the glasses. So far, it seems an innocent, if odd looking contraption. However, turning it over so you can see what the plastic frame conceals, you divine the true purpose of the device! Protruding from the reverse side of the devices' frame are numerous white appendages - when the device is turned on, they vibrate and drill incessantly into acupoints on the face, turning your brains into mush and making you susceptible to the dubious claims Owell makes about its products.
In a moment of folly, I tried the damn thing on, and felt my brains pulverising, but luckily I retained sufficient presence of mind to wrench the device off my head before it was too late. After that I considered having my nails painted at the counter beside the Evil Torture Device's (NB: The two events may not be entirely unrelated). However, Ban Xiong sadly revealed to me that this required a year's/month's subscription to some crummy magazine, so I sadly walked off to meet David for the ACJC Choir Concert (more on that in a later post).
On Monday, I visited the former Poor Suffering Substantive Third Sergeant, shortly before that a Poor Suffering Local Third Sergeant, the Self-Proclaimed 'Master of Office', Top Bio Student in NJ in His Year, the Master of the Chair, He Who Cackles Evilly, the Hawker of Evil Torture Devices (more on that later) - (name removed by request).
Since his glorious ORD day, he has been deprived of his lucrative slave penance, and due to his various extravagances (among them a $50 Nike lycra shirt which he never wears in front of me anymore since I kept making fun of his fondness for it), he has found himself in a state of penury and thus been reduced to finagling innocent visitors to the World Book Fair on behalf of a company that shall remain unnamed. Of course, but for the odd commitment (eg Monday's "An Evening With Friends" - the ACJC choir concert, and incidentally an all too common name for various products/events), a general preference for bumming and my not having gotten my IC back yet, I might be joining him in foisting unwanted products onto fair visitors.
Ironically enough, Ban Xiong has not seen the fair, and likely will not, since he is stationed outside the exhibition hall. He thus asked me to serve as his eyes and ears, and in an act of beneficence, I assented to his not unreasonable request.
The World Book Fair is grossly misnamed. I was entertaining vague notions of reading Skaldic poetry, but they were mercilessly crushed upon my entrance into the halls, for it soon became apparent, from the preponderance of Chinese signs, products and displays (just possibly outnumbering those in English), that this was a Chinese Book Fair (now, to be fair I did see a "Malay/Muslim" Book Section, but it was tiny), with mainly Chinese companies from China, Taiwan and Singapore setting up shop. This is what happens when naming is left up to people with a Sino-Centric world view who take China (the middle of the world, after all) and the Chinese diaspora to represent the world. We see something similar happening across the Atlantic with the "World Series" (Baseball).
There was also a surprising number of publishers of religious books that put in an appearance: Ahmadiyya Muslim Mission, Bethesda Book Centre, Ch'an Yun Buddhist Handicrafts & Trading, Deva Crown Trading Pte Ltd, Fo Guang Shan (Singapore), Guangxi Publications Imp & Exp Co, Jen Chen Buddist Book Publisher, Popstar Media, Shalom Christian Media, Shun Da DIY Handicrafts & Trading, Singapore Soka Association, Still Thoughts Cultural Services, Supreme Master Ching Hai Asso, True Buddha Publications, Vaidurya Media House, Xi-An Bookstore, Yuen Jue Zheng (Singapore) c/o Kang Bao Lek Vegetarian and Zen Buddist Culture Services Center (from the official website). As could be predicted from the Chinese character of the fair, most of the religious content was Buddhist in nature. I would stop here, but I saw at one booth something that I never thought I would have the misfortune so see in Singapore - a banner advertising the book, Answers In Genesis.
Now, matters of religion are debatable, but Answers In Genesis holds that the bible is literally true down to the last word and infallible. It affirms the obviously suspect traditional authorship of the Pentateuch. If that isn't ridiculous enough, it asserts that the earth is only a few thousand years old. To its credit, it pooh poohs some of the more ludicrous Creationist arguments, but retains many more, so it remains a collection of fudges, false information, disingenuous arguments and rhetoric disguised as evidence (eg: We know that the earth is less than 10,000 years old because the bible says so!). I would have bought the book, if for nothing else, then to laugh uproariously and work myself into a stage of righteous moral and intellectual outrage, but my slave penance will be cut in less than 2 weeks, so I cannot afford (too many) frivolous purchases.
Thus, with my hopes dashed, spirit distraught and head down from the double blow, I then trekked across the length and breadth of the exhibition halls to seek out the Useful, the Interesting, the Educational and the Grotesque, and was struck dumb by the abundance of the last.
For a Book fair, there was a surprising amount of non-book items: music CDs, educational CD-ROMs, toys, videos, handicrafts, herbal supplements, exercise equipment and assorted accessories. In one corner was a stall extolling the benefits of the "Shichida method" of mucking with your children's minds. At another side was a booth selling transparent rattles containing luminous, rotating neon strips (I kid you not) - the perfect party toys for Ah Bengs. A prominent sign at another area preached the benefits of their "Musk Hemorrhoid Suppository".
And near an exit was sold "body slimming wear" using "the special lycra spandex", which the banner claimed was widely used by doctors. A closer look at this dubious sounding claim revealed that the "special lycra spandex" is used by doctors to cover post-surgery wounds so no scar will form on the wounds' healing. What that had to do with slimming, I could not figure out. Perhaps the most amusing thing was the "no bra" feature that was touted as enhancing the bustline. Presumably, if your body shrinks after being clad in lycra shrink wrap, but your breasts stay the same size, your bustline will appear relatively larger.
At another part of the hall was a booth with 5-in-1 air processors, the 5 functions being:
1) "Ice cooling effect" (the air coming out of the contraption didn't feel very cold to me)
2) Air purification
3) Humidification (local air is already dreadfully humid, and if you use it in an air-conditioned room, the air will already be cool and pure)
4) Essential oil diffusion
5) Ionisation, releasing 10,000 ions (or thereabouts) into the air for a "waterfall fresh air environment" (wth?! More likely you'll get zapped by the ions)
Dazed by the sheer perversity of all that I had witnessed, I stumbled back in a daze to where Ban Xiong was happily conning innocent souls and related some of the horrible sights that I had witnessed. I then noticed that there were some suspicious looking items in a glass case beside Ban Xiong's counter. Inside were 2 evil torture devices, which he informed me would be mine with a one year subscription to a SPH newspaper. The more sadistic looking of the two was the "Owell eye massager model OW-700". The display claimed that the massager brought a panoply of health benefits, but I noticed the proliferation of qualifiers like "can" and "may", eg: "The OW-700 can help stimulate eye acupoints" (emphasis added). The only claim to which no qualifier was tacked was about benefits which could be due to the placebo effect; among others, reduced eye fatigue. Sneaky, the way they pre-empt disputes about the device's claims. Intrigued, yet simultaneously disgusted, I took a closer look.
From the outside, the device looks like a pair of futuristic, if bulky-looking, glasses, reminiscent of the visor worn by Georgi LaForge in Star Trek and possibly worth wearing for a stroll down Orchard Road. The device is strapped to the head with velcro straps that attach to moulded plastic, which forms the frame of the device. Above where the eyes would be, holes have been drilled in the plastic, to be covered by thin black perforated sheets. A control unit with 2 slide switches (yes, I actually went to check out what they are called) to control the device is mounted above the bridge of the glasses. So far, it seems an innocent, if odd looking contraption. However, turning it over so you can see what the plastic frame conceals, you divine the true purpose of the device! Protruding from the reverse side of the devices' frame are numerous white appendages - when the device is turned on, they vibrate and drill incessantly into acupoints on the face, turning your brains into mush and making you susceptible to the dubious claims Owell makes about its products.
In a moment of folly, I tried the damn thing on, and felt my brains pulverising, but luckily I retained sufficient presence of mind to wrench the device off my head before it was too late. After that I considered having my nails painted at the counter beside the Evil Torture Device's (NB: The two events may not be entirely unrelated). However, Ban Xiong sadly revealed to me that this required a year's/month's subscription to some crummy magazine, so I sadly walked off to meet David for the ACJC Choir Concert (more on that in a later post).
Post ID: 108602682281295104
Monday, May 31, 2004
Swans sing before they die - 'twere no bad thing
Did certain persons die before they sing.
--- Samuel Taylor Coleridge
***
For thee the fates, severely kind, ordain
A cool suspense from pleasure and from pain;
Thy life a long, dead calm of fix'd repose;
No pulse that riots, and no blood that glows.
--- Alexander Pope, Eloisa to Abelard
***
Interesting commentary on grown women lusting after the teenage boys in Harry Potter.
For once, it's the other way around :)
***
After the rather insipid Empires: Dawn of the Modern World (the lack of a sequel tells you how well received it was), I am now on to Reign of Chaos.
Yes, it's 2 years old. So I'm slow.
Did certain persons die before they sing.
--- Samuel Taylor Coleridge
***
For thee the fates, severely kind, ordain
A cool suspense from pleasure and from pain;
Thy life a long, dead calm of fix'd repose;
No pulse that riots, and no blood that glows.
--- Alexander Pope, Eloisa to Abelard
***
Interesting commentary on grown women lusting after the teenage boys in Harry Potter.
For once, it's the other way around :)
***
After the rather insipid Empires: Dawn of the Modern World (the lack of a sequel tells you how well received it was), I am now on to Reign of Chaos.
Yes, it's 2 years old. So I'm slow.
Post ID: 108584759707909476
Saturday, May 29, 2004
I am told that during the recent company proficiency tests back at 42, as a vote of protest, one company "chose" to fail by somehow moving off without their OC, letting him get killed by the enermy. Seemingly even the prospect of RT did not deter them from registering their protest.
They spend $170,000 to renovate the medical centre when it is not totally necessary, but meanwhile the whole place is down to 1 toner catridge, which has to be shared by everyone, and rubber stamps which are needed for daily work go unmade. So much for intelligent budgeting.
Apparently there are no PRs in Armour - only Singapore citizens. Bah.
Quotes:
They say Taiwan is cheap. You can have one girl for 5 dollars. (?!)
[Written] CPL Denise (Denise)
The self-proclaimed Master of Office was giving his rationale for skipping all the NUS camps. According to him, they are just a chance for desperate NUS (male) seniors to ogle at girls in wet clothes. Besides, he has plenty of unspecified friends already.
***
Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords
"Five years after the events from the award winning Knights of the Old Republic, the Sith Lords have hunted the Jedi to the edge of extinction and are on the verge of crushing the Old Republic. With the Jedi Order in ruin, the Republic’s only hope is a Jedi Knight struggling to reconnect with the Force and is faced with the galaxies most dire decision: To follow the light or succumb to the dark side…"
I can't wait :) I must say, KOTOR was one of the best games I've ever played.
***
***
"Augustus came from a miraculous conception by the divine and human conjunction of [the God] Apollo and [his mother] Atia. How does the historian respond to that story? Are there any who take it literally?... That divergence raises an ethical problem for me. Either all such divine conceptions, from Alexander to Augusts and from the Christ to the Buddha, should be accepted literally and miraculously or al of them should be accepted metaphorically and theologically. It is not morally acceptable to say directly and openly that our story is truth but yours is myth; ours is history but yours is a lie. It is even less morally acceptable to say that indirectly and covertly by manufacturing defensive or protective strategies that apply only to one's own story."
--- John Crosssan, The Birth of Christianity, 1998, pg 28 - 29, as quoted by Pagan Origins of the Christ Myth
***
"All critical thought is by nature adversarial. A "positive" role belongs instead to creative thought. While the role of creative thought is to create ideas and possibilities, the role of critical thought is to debunk them, and it is only by these two processes working together that we arrive at knowledge and truth. Critical thought can be viewed in much the same way as natural selection: it does in a sense 'create' by eliminating the 'weak' and leaving the 'strong'. Thus, critical thought's role as a debunking device is essential and indispensable, and it must play a part in every act of knowing. But it does not eliminate ideas and possibilities until none are left. Nihilism is as irrational as blind faith, and as self limiting as naivety. Rather, critical thought eliminates until all that remains is the consistent, the probable, the tenable, the reliable, the useful--in other words, knowledge."
"'Holders of firm religious beliefs do not merely resist attempts at critique, they are often impervious to them'. This kind of behavior, which seems inexplicably irrational, is revealed to be quite explicable (though perhaps still irrational) when we recognize that the religiously devout are often interested in things more important to them than the truth (such as an ultimate meaning to life). Since the personal, emotional benefits provided by spiritual beliefs do not depend on those beliefs being true, their truth becomes (in practice) irrelevant. Thus, while Buddhism and Christianity each provide a supernatural explanation for our ills, and an equally supernatural solution, within all this lies a purely practical belief system which not only provides an ultimate meaning to life, but attempts to produce a greater balance of peace and happiness by providing both a moral standard and a reason to live up to it. But all of these benefits are gained merely by the claims being believed, and not by their actually being true, which is quite unlike scientific claims or technological inventions, where benefits are usually gained only when we believe in theories which are true (and definite hazards are often created by believing in false ones)."
"'Religion seems founded,' he writes, 'on a need for an ultimate meaning to life'. Recognizing this, it becomes more obvious how people can become so emotionally attached to their religion, and why criticizing their religion can so quickly be regarded as a personal or blasphemous attack, or be pathologically ignored or avoided altogether."
"Many may be surprised to read the following words of Carl Sagan: 'Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty, and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual' (from Carl Sagan, 'Does Truth Matter? Science, Pseudoscience, and Civilization.' Skeptical Inquirer, 20:6. 1996. p. 29.)"
--- From a review of Do Religious Life and Critical Thought Need Each Other?
***
'Buffy' conference takes show seriously - "It's tough for scholars to be taken seriously when their subject is a TV show about a California blonde fighting evil in a high school built on a gateway to hell."
They spend $170,000 to renovate the medical centre when it is not totally necessary, but meanwhile the whole place is down to 1 toner catridge, which has to be shared by everyone, and rubber stamps which are needed for daily work go unmade. So much for intelligent budgeting.
Apparently there are no PRs in Armour - only Singapore citizens. Bah.
Quotes:
They say Taiwan is cheap. You can have one girl for 5 dollars. (?!)
[Written] CPL Denise (Denise)
The self-proclaimed Master of Office was giving his rationale for skipping all the NUS camps. According to him, they are just a chance for desperate NUS (male) seniors to ogle at girls in wet clothes. Besides, he has plenty of unspecified friends already.
***
Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords
"Five years after the events from the award winning Knights of the Old Republic, the Sith Lords have hunted the Jedi to the edge of extinction and are on the verge of crushing the Old Republic. With the Jedi Order in ruin, the Republic’s only hope is a Jedi Knight struggling to reconnect with the Force and is faced with the galaxies most dire decision: To follow the light or succumb to the dark side…"
I can't wait :) I must say, KOTOR was one of the best games I've ever played.
***
I took the What Mythological Creature Are you? test by
***
"Augustus came from a miraculous conception by the divine and human conjunction of [the God] Apollo and [his mother] Atia. How does the historian respond to that story? Are there any who take it literally?... That divergence raises an ethical problem for me. Either all such divine conceptions, from Alexander to Augusts and from the Christ to the Buddha, should be accepted literally and miraculously or al of them should be accepted metaphorically and theologically. It is not morally acceptable to say directly and openly that our story is truth but yours is myth; ours is history but yours is a lie. It is even less morally acceptable to say that indirectly and covertly by manufacturing defensive or protective strategies that apply only to one's own story."
--- John Crosssan, The Birth of Christianity, 1998, pg 28 - 29, as quoted by Pagan Origins of the Christ Myth
***
"All critical thought is by nature adversarial. A "positive" role belongs instead to creative thought. While the role of creative thought is to create ideas and possibilities, the role of critical thought is to debunk them, and it is only by these two processes working together that we arrive at knowledge and truth. Critical thought can be viewed in much the same way as natural selection: it does in a sense 'create' by eliminating the 'weak' and leaving the 'strong'. Thus, critical thought's role as a debunking device is essential and indispensable, and it must play a part in every act of knowing. But it does not eliminate ideas and possibilities until none are left. Nihilism is as irrational as blind faith, and as self limiting as naivety. Rather, critical thought eliminates until all that remains is the consistent, the probable, the tenable, the reliable, the useful--in other words, knowledge."
"'Holders of firm religious beliefs do not merely resist attempts at critique, they are often impervious to them'. This kind of behavior, which seems inexplicably irrational, is revealed to be quite explicable (though perhaps still irrational) when we recognize that the religiously devout are often interested in things more important to them than the truth (such as an ultimate meaning to life). Since the personal, emotional benefits provided by spiritual beliefs do not depend on those beliefs being true, their truth becomes (in practice) irrelevant. Thus, while Buddhism and Christianity each provide a supernatural explanation for our ills, and an equally supernatural solution, within all this lies a purely practical belief system which not only provides an ultimate meaning to life, but attempts to produce a greater balance of peace and happiness by providing both a moral standard and a reason to live up to it. But all of these benefits are gained merely by the claims being believed, and not by their actually being true, which is quite unlike scientific claims or technological inventions, where benefits are usually gained only when we believe in theories which are true (and definite hazards are often created by believing in false ones)."
"'Religion seems founded,' he writes, 'on a need for an ultimate meaning to life'. Recognizing this, it becomes more obvious how people can become so emotionally attached to their religion, and why criticizing their religion can so quickly be regarded as a personal or blasphemous attack, or be pathologically ignored or avoided altogether."
"Many may be surprised to read the following words of Carl Sagan: 'Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty, and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual' (from Carl Sagan, 'Does Truth Matter? Science, Pseudoscience, and Civilization.' Skeptical Inquirer, 20:6. 1996. p. 29.)"
--- From a review of Do Religious Life and Critical Thought Need Each Other?
***
'Buffy' conference takes show seriously - "It's tough for scholars to be taken seriously when their subject is a TV show about a California blonde fighting evil in a high school built on a gateway to hell."
Post ID: 108575730191083478
Friday, May 28, 2004
Word of the day: "callipygian"
Advertisement:
Anyone who wishes to work at a temp job (booth duty) at the World Book Fair (31st May to 4th June) for 3-4 days, at a rate of 6 bucks per hour... Too bad. All vacancies have been filled :) (Addendum added 29/05/04)
***
I thought of the orphans and widows he had made; of the tears that had been shed for his glory and of the only woman who had ever loved him pushed from his heart by the cold hand of ambition. And I said I would rather have been a French peasant and worn wooden shoes. I would rather have lived in a hut with a vine growing over the door and the grapes growing purple in the kisses of the autumn sun. I would rather have been that poor peasant with my loving wife by my side, knitting as the day died out of the sky, with my children upon my knee and their arms about me. I would rather have been that man and gone down to the tongueless silence of the dreamless dust than to have been that imperial impersonation of force and murder known as Napoleon the Great. And so I would ten thousand times.
--- Soliloquy of Robert Green Ingersoll at the tomb of Napoleon
***
A review of God Against the Gods: The History of the War Between Monotheism
and Polytheism, by Jonathan Kirsch
"Kirsch jumps to the reign of Emperor Theodosius, who ruled from 379 to 395 and made Christianity the state religion in 390. From there Kirsch documents the increasing suppression of not only paganism but secular philosophy and learning as well, culminating in the burning of the library of Alexandria in 390 and the horrible murder of the mathematician and philosopher Hypatia by Christian monks in 415. After dragging her from her chariot and ripping off her clothes, they hacked her to death with sharpened clam shells, what the men in those times used as razors."
Ouch. No wonder the christ cult won.
"Polytheistic religions tend to have a greater tolerance of opposing religious points of view than do monotheistic creeds. With belief in the "One True God" one is not likely to be tolerant of those not following the true faith... Certainly, polytheistic Hindus in Bombay and other places on the Indian subcontinent have murdered Moslems in internecine strife with an enthusiasm that matches that of their monotheistic foes. This instance notwithstanding, I would
tend to agree that, had the pagan tradition of religious toleration prevailed in the later Roman Empire, our own civilization would have been richer and happier for it."
"Christianity, in the form it took once the Roman state had co-opted it, was too useful for the maintenance of centralized power for it to be abandoned. This is well illustrated in the religious controversy between Pelagius and Augustine in the opening decades
of the fifth century. Pelagius, while still maintaining that human beings required God's help to be saved, rejected the concept of original sin and asserted that people could obtain salvation through their own efforts. Augustine asserted that humans are all depraved from birth, inheriting the sin of Adam and Eve through sexual procreation, and that only God's grace could save them. The latter view also implies that, as born sinners and criminals, people need to be kept in line with an iron fist. This idea was much more attractive to the Roman state, particularly in its fragile situation following the collapse of Roman military power, than was a theology asserting the human capacity for free will. Thus, for making the latter assertion Pelagius was branded a heretic, and for asserting human worthlessness Augustine was made a saint. The imperial bias
toward internal control in the declining years of the empire militated against religious tolerance, hence the utility of the Christianity of that day, with its rigorous unity of doctrine. As Kirsch himself points out, the word "heresy" derives from a word meaning "choice" (Gr. hairesis)."
***
TweakHound's Super XP Tweaking Guide - Version 5.0 - Comprehensive guide to tweaking Windows XP, which declaims some common pieces of advice (eg clearing your prefetch directory often)
Write your name in hieroglyphs
For Some, the Blogging Never Stops - "Blogging is a pastime for many, even a livelihood for a few. For some, it becomes an obsession. Such bloggers often feel compelled to write several times daily and feel anxious if they don't keep up. As they spend more time hunkered over their computers, they neglect family, friends and jobs."
Al Gore Links Abu Ghraib Prison Abuses to Deep Flaws in Bush Policy - Despite everything, I still have a feeling Dubya will be returned to power and the world will go to hell in the next 4 years.
ChristianExodus.org - All the fundies want to move into one state. Sounds like a win-win situation.
The Way We Eat Now: Ancient bodies collide with modern technology to produce a flabby, disease-ridden populace - "Chewing can transform anatomy rather quickly; in one study, in which Lieberman fed pigs a diet of softened food, in a matter of months their skulls developed shorter and narrower dimensions and their snouts developed thinner bones than those of pigs eating a hard-food diet."
Money Matters: An IMF Exhibit -- The Importance of Global Cooperation
Singles: Flirt up your life - "While we desensitized American savages gleefully absorb scenes of graphic violence, we hypocritically express shock and dismay at the sight of an unclothed human body. Apparently, however, it's kind of the other way around in Europe. Indeed, Singles was originally developed in Germany, a country that's notoriously strict about depictions of violence in its video games yet has no qualms about full-frontal nudity, if Singles is any indication... [You] are limited to a fairly small selection of Caucasian men and women, the latter of which are all quite pretty, and the former of which all look like dirtbags.. Only in Singles do slender, attractive women in evening gowns spend their Saturday nights using the Internet."
Gum Returns to Singapore After 12 Years - Yeh.
Advertisement:
Anyone who wishes to work at a temp job (booth duty) at the World Book Fair (31st May to 4th June) for 3-4 days, at a rate of 6 bucks per hour... Too bad. All vacancies have been filled :) (Addendum added 29/05/04)
***
I thought of the orphans and widows he had made; of the tears that had been shed for his glory and of the only woman who had ever loved him pushed from his heart by the cold hand of ambition. And I said I would rather have been a French peasant and worn wooden shoes. I would rather have lived in a hut with a vine growing over the door and the grapes growing purple in the kisses of the autumn sun. I would rather have been that poor peasant with my loving wife by my side, knitting as the day died out of the sky, with my children upon my knee and their arms about me. I would rather have been that man and gone down to the tongueless silence of the dreamless dust than to have been that imperial impersonation of force and murder known as Napoleon the Great. And so I would ten thousand times.
--- Soliloquy of Robert Green Ingersoll at the tomb of Napoleon
***
A review of God Against the Gods: The History of the War Between Monotheism
and Polytheism, by Jonathan Kirsch
"Kirsch jumps to the reign of Emperor Theodosius, who ruled from 379 to 395 and made Christianity the state religion in 390. From there Kirsch documents the increasing suppression of not only paganism but secular philosophy and learning as well, culminating in the burning of the library of Alexandria in 390 and the horrible murder of the mathematician and philosopher Hypatia by Christian monks in 415. After dragging her from her chariot and ripping off her clothes, they hacked her to death with sharpened clam shells, what the men in those times used as razors."
Ouch. No wonder the christ cult won.
"Polytheistic religions tend to have a greater tolerance of opposing religious points of view than do monotheistic creeds. With belief in the "One True God" one is not likely to be tolerant of those not following the true faith... Certainly, polytheistic Hindus in Bombay and other places on the Indian subcontinent have murdered Moslems in internecine strife with an enthusiasm that matches that of their monotheistic foes. This instance notwithstanding, I would
tend to agree that, had the pagan tradition of religious toleration prevailed in the later Roman Empire, our own civilization would have been richer and happier for it."
"Christianity, in the form it took once the Roman state had co-opted it, was too useful for the maintenance of centralized power for it to be abandoned. This is well illustrated in the religious controversy between Pelagius and Augustine in the opening decades
of the fifth century. Pelagius, while still maintaining that human beings required God's help to be saved, rejected the concept of original sin and asserted that people could obtain salvation through their own efforts. Augustine asserted that humans are all depraved from birth, inheriting the sin of Adam and Eve through sexual procreation, and that only God's grace could save them. The latter view also implies that, as born sinners and criminals, people need to be kept in line with an iron fist. This idea was much more attractive to the Roman state, particularly in its fragile situation following the collapse of Roman military power, than was a theology asserting the human capacity for free will. Thus, for making the latter assertion Pelagius was branded a heretic, and for asserting human worthlessness Augustine was made a saint. The imperial bias
toward internal control in the declining years of the empire militated against religious tolerance, hence the utility of the Christianity of that day, with its rigorous unity of doctrine. As Kirsch himself points out, the word "heresy" derives from a word meaning "choice" (Gr. hairesis)."
***
TweakHound's Super XP Tweaking Guide - Version 5.0 - Comprehensive guide to tweaking Windows XP, which declaims some common pieces of advice (eg clearing your prefetch directory often)
Write your name in hieroglyphs
For Some, the Blogging Never Stops - "Blogging is a pastime for many, even a livelihood for a few. For some, it becomes an obsession. Such bloggers often feel compelled to write several times daily and feel anxious if they don't keep up. As they spend more time hunkered over their computers, they neglect family, friends and jobs."
Al Gore Links Abu Ghraib Prison Abuses to Deep Flaws in Bush Policy - Despite everything, I still have a feeling Dubya will be returned to power and the world will go to hell in the next 4 years.
ChristianExodus.org - All the fundies want to move into one state. Sounds like a win-win situation.
The Way We Eat Now: Ancient bodies collide with modern technology to produce a flabby, disease-ridden populace - "Chewing can transform anatomy rather quickly; in one study, in which Lieberman fed pigs a diet of softened food, in a matter of months their skulls developed shorter and narrower dimensions and their snouts developed thinner bones than those of pigs eating a hard-food diet."
Money Matters: An IMF Exhibit -- The Importance of Global Cooperation
Singles: Flirt up your life - "While we desensitized American savages gleefully absorb scenes of graphic violence, we hypocritically express shock and dismay at the sight of an unclothed human body. Apparently, however, it's kind of the other way around in Europe. Indeed, Singles was originally developed in Germany, a country that's notoriously strict about depictions of violence in its video games yet has no qualms about full-frontal nudity, if Singles is any indication... [You] are limited to a fairly small selection of Caucasian men and women, the latter of which are all quite pretty, and the former of which all look like dirtbags.. Only in Singles do slender, attractive women in evening gowns spend their Saturday nights using the Internet."
Gum Returns to Singapore After 12 Years - Yeh.
Post ID: 108571309067052904
I suspect that half of my ICQ list is either perpetually in invisible mode or has defected to M$N. The trouble is tracking down the login emails of the second half.
New ambition: Do something to get myself or my exploits onto Ananova's Quirkies section.
***
It's disgusting how unscrupulous companies have screwed up web searches by:
1) Setting up storefronts that merely rip reviews and information off from Amazon.com, then offer you a link to Amazon.com to buy the product just so they get some commission (Example)
2) Including choice keywords (eg MP3, free and download) on pages hawking music CDs to mislead people, thus drowning out any sites that *do* provide the desired MP3s (Example)
3) Generating pages which merely coalesce results from one or more search engines and include excerpts from the search results, so you make absolutely no progress (Example)
Is there no limit to the iniquity of man?
Scum.
***
The British Museum has an excellent site on Mesopotamia where, among other things, you can join cuneiform tablets (which I did by looking at the colour and shape of the tablets rather than examining the writing), learn how to spell the word "sheep" in cuneiform and see a dramatic photo of an archaeologist rescuing a last find as water from a dammed river pours into a site.
Why do we find mime artists annoying? - "Psychologists say we love and hate mime artists because they wear a mask that hides their features and allows a person to behave unpredictably. We also fear they'll make fun of us."
Ancient gods seek place in modern Greece - "On a sweet Athenian spring evening with the sacred rock of the Acropolis bathed in the white light of a full moon, a chorus of voices join in prayer, chanting: “Hail Zeus!” The voices are not those of actors in an ancient tragedy or an Olympic ceremony, but a group of modern-day Athenians solemnly worshipping the Olympian Gods."
So technically it is insensitive and religious discrimination to call the body of Greek myths and legends "Greek Mythology"
We’re Losing Shakespeare! - "The more the language alters, the harder it becomes to understand the past. The English of Chaucer has long since become a semi-foreign language. The same will soon be true of Shakespeare, whom we already need footnotes to help us through. And then Jonathan Swift, and Samuel Johnson, and so on."
Sad, but true. But surely, concluding that "George Orwell saw not only the poverty but the danger of a language that had become purely contemporary. A language without roots, without the authority of generations implicit in its usages, is the perfect instrument for tyranny" smacks of paranoia and an unsound mind. It's just like those who bemoan "cultural imperialism"
The bizarre world of bonkers book collecting - "There's 1934's Correctly English in Hundred Days. ("This book is prepared for the Chinese young man who wishes to served for the foreign firm. It divided nearly 190 pages. It contains full of ordinary speak and write language.")"
(Some links from In principio erat Verbum)
***
Troy review - And you thought *I* was pedantic :)
Choice lines:
"Would Pitt's female fans still have come to watch a near-naked Brad Pitt getting it on with some guy? Sure, why not? It's not like he's ever going to get it on with most of them anyway."
"Achilles, who has a strange combination of nearly Matrix-like powers, utter ruthlessness and male lovers in the original poem, has been turned into "Fabio on the beach" in the guise of Pitt"
"In the Iliad, it says when Helen is in Troy, two old guards catch sight of her and say "it is no shame that men should fight and die for such a beauty as this". I can't imagine that happening with Kruger, who seems to have wandered in from the next-door audition for Eastern European Bond girls."
"I am so sick of stories of women who are enslaved and then fall in love with their captors/rapists/enslavers! Hello, where are all those nutty left-wing liberals and feminists when you need them?"
"The very idea that Hollywood could so alter one of the greatest tales ever told to say that anyone but Clytemnestra killed Agamemnon is, to use an apt Greek word, hubris. It's disgusting. The point that Agamemnon goes home to be killed by his wife Clytemnestra is the basis of the Oresteia - the cornerstone of Western Drama. Benioff might as well make a giant 40 foot robot come in and kill him"
"I was looking forward to Paris dying. But turns out that the writers changed it...grrr. They kill Brad and Eric, but they can't kill Orlando. Were the writers afraid that a few million teen Orli fans were gonna hurt them or something?"
"Granted, it was nice to see lots of splendid muscles from Pitt and Bana, but did Petersen really have to desecrate the Iliad in order to do that? Couldn't he have made a film about bodybuilders or competitive swimmers instead?"
"The Greek kings all look like old bikers. In fact, the Greeks look pretty much like every OTHER people trying really hard to look like Greeks. They're kind of a cross between Minoans, Medieval Europeans, and Vikings. It's a sad day indeed when the Greeks aren't Greek. One of the gang I watched the film with commented that the Greeks looked more like Dwarves from LOTR."
"The swords in the film are made of steel - and definitely not bronze. WHY IN ZEUS’ NAME IS THERE IRON IN THE BRONZE AGE? There's a reason this age is called the BRONZE AGE - they didn't have iron or steel tools yet."
"What on earth were llamas doing running around the streets of Troy? I know they filmed in Mexico or something, but what are South American animals doing in a market place in Asia Minor in in 1200 B.C.?"
"In an interview, Benioff recently said,"This is the mother of all epics, the cornerstone of Western literature. If I screw it up, classicists around the world will issue a fatwa and assassinate me with bronze daggers." He'd better be borrowing Brad's protective armour then. If I were in the mafia, I would seriously start a vendetta against those who allowed this film to see the light."
You learn things prose retellings gloss over (like Achilles' bisexuality).
***
Do girls get caned in sch in Singapore? - "Hi. I'm from Malaysia, and when I was in primary school, I've seen many canings on boys and girls (I often get caned too). That time, I don't really have any feelings on it, but now, when I'm big, I do feel happy when I think of girls getting caned in school. Sometimes, when I return to my primary school, and looked into the class and saw teachers caning girls, I do feel very 'excited'"
Disturbing.
***
Disney movie! What the HELL are you doing taking
this quiz, Goldilocks?! You're not a very
sexual person...in fact, you're probably a
virgin. You'd be better off trying your hand at
voice-overs for a Saturday morning cartoon.
What kind of porno would you star in?
brought to you by Quizilla
***
Go Gold Ranger!
Gold...Ranger...
Quick as lightning, strong as steel..
Watch out danger, he's for real...
You know when lightning strikes, it's Gold Ranger!
All evil you can't stop him!
Gold Ranger, he's not droppin!
Watch out when lightning strikes, it's Gold Ranger!
Gold....Ranger..
Gold....Ranger..
Go Gold Ranger!
Gold...Ranger Go...
His Power has no fear..
A Golden force is here..
You know when thunder rolls it's Gold Ranger!
When darkness comes to town,
Gold Ranger can't back down..
Watch out, cuz lightning strikes, it's Gold Ranger!
Gold! Ran..ger! Go!
Ranger...danger...Ranger...
Here comes Gold Ranger! Woah!
Gold..Ranger..
Gold..Ranger..go Gold Ranger!
Gold..Ranger..
Gold..Ranger..
Go Gold Ranger!
How come they haven't had cool songs like these since Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie? The newest album I can find is mostly made up of old tracks - the only "new" track is an insipid remix of the Wild Force theme (the original sounds better), and the newest original song on it is "Best of the Best of the Best" (the Astro Delta Megazord finisher theme - that came out in 1998!!!) :( That said, something is wrong with Amazon.com - some of the track previews I clicked on sounded like a black rap song.
New ambition: Do something to get myself or my exploits onto Ananova's Quirkies section.
***
It's disgusting how unscrupulous companies have screwed up web searches by:
1) Setting up storefronts that merely rip reviews and information off from Amazon.com, then offer you a link to Amazon.com to buy the product just so they get some commission (Example)
2) Including choice keywords (eg MP3, free and download) on pages hawking music CDs to mislead people, thus drowning out any sites that *do* provide the desired MP3s (Example)
3) Generating pages which merely coalesce results from one or more search engines and include excerpts from the search results, so you make absolutely no progress (Example)
Is there no limit to the iniquity of man?
Scum.
***
The British Museum has an excellent site on Mesopotamia where, among other things, you can join cuneiform tablets (which I did by looking at the colour and shape of the tablets rather than examining the writing), learn how to spell the word "sheep" in cuneiform and see a dramatic photo of an archaeologist rescuing a last find as water from a dammed river pours into a site.
Why do we find mime artists annoying? - "Psychologists say we love and hate mime artists because they wear a mask that hides their features and allows a person to behave unpredictably. We also fear they'll make fun of us."
Ancient gods seek place in modern Greece - "On a sweet Athenian spring evening with the sacred rock of the Acropolis bathed in the white light of a full moon, a chorus of voices join in prayer, chanting: “Hail Zeus!” The voices are not those of actors in an ancient tragedy or an Olympic ceremony, but a group of modern-day Athenians solemnly worshipping the Olympian Gods."
So technically it is insensitive and religious discrimination to call the body of Greek myths and legends "Greek Mythology"
We’re Losing Shakespeare! - "The more the language alters, the harder it becomes to understand the past. The English of Chaucer has long since become a semi-foreign language. The same will soon be true of Shakespeare, whom we already need footnotes to help us through. And then Jonathan Swift, and Samuel Johnson, and so on."
Sad, but true. But surely, concluding that "George Orwell saw not only the poverty but the danger of a language that had become purely contemporary. A language without roots, without the authority of generations implicit in its usages, is the perfect instrument for tyranny" smacks of paranoia and an unsound mind. It's just like those who bemoan "cultural imperialism"
The bizarre world of bonkers book collecting - "There's 1934's Correctly English in Hundred Days. ("This book is prepared for the Chinese young man who wishes to served for the foreign firm. It divided nearly 190 pages. It contains full of ordinary speak and write language.")"
(Some links from In principio erat Verbum)
***
Troy review - And you thought *I* was pedantic :)
Choice lines:
"Would Pitt's female fans still have come to watch a near-naked Brad Pitt getting it on with some guy? Sure, why not? It's not like he's ever going to get it on with most of them anyway."
"Achilles, who has a strange combination of nearly Matrix-like powers, utter ruthlessness and male lovers in the original poem, has been turned into "Fabio on the beach" in the guise of Pitt"
"In the Iliad, it says when Helen is in Troy, two old guards catch sight of her and say "it is no shame that men should fight and die for such a beauty as this". I can't imagine that happening with Kruger, who seems to have wandered in from the next-door audition for Eastern European Bond girls."
"I am so sick of stories of women who are enslaved and then fall in love with their captors/rapists/enslavers! Hello, where are all those nutty left-wing liberals and feminists when you need them?"
"The very idea that Hollywood could so alter one of the greatest tales ever told to say that anyone but Clytemnestra killed Agamemnon is, to use an apt Greek word, hubris. It's disgusting. The point that Agamemnon goes home to be killed by his wife Clytemnestra is the basis of the Oresteia - the cornerstone of Western Drama. Benioff might as well make a giant 40 foot robot come in and kill him"
"I was looking forward to Paris dying. But turns out that the writers changed it...grrr. They kill Brad and Eric, but they can't kill Orlando. Were the writers afraid that a few million teen Orli fans were gonna hurt them or something?"
"Granted, it was nice to see lots of splendid muscles from Pitt and Bana, but did Petersen really have to desecrate the Iliad in order to do that? Couldn't he have made a film about bodybuilders or competitive swimmers instead?"
"The Greek kings all look like old bikers. In fact, the Greeks look pretty much like every OTHER people trying really hard to look like Greeks. They're kind of a cross between Minoans, Medieval Europeans, and Vikings. It's a sad day indeed when the Greeks aren't Greek. One of the gang I watched the film with commented that the Greeks looked more like Dwarves from LOTR."
"The swords in the film are made of steel - and definitely not bronze. WHY IN ZEUS’ NAME IS THERE IRON IN THE BRONZE AGE? There's a reason this age is called the BRONZE AGE - they didn't have iron or steel tools yet."
"What on earth were llamas doing running around the streets of Troy? I know they filmed in Mexico or something, but what are South American animals doing in a market place in Asia Minor in in 1200 B.C.?"
"In an interview, Benioff recently said,"This is the mother of all epics, the cornerstone of Western literature. If I screw it up, classicists around the world will issue a fatwa and assassinate me with bronze daggers." He'd better be borrowing Brad's protective armour then. If I were in the mafia, I would seriously start a vendetta against those who allowed this film to see the light."
You learn things prose retellings gloss over (like Achilles' bisexuality).
***
Do girls get caned in sch in Singapore? - "Hi. I'm from Malaysia, and when I was in primary school, I've seen many canings on boys and girls (I often get caned too). That time, I don't really have any feelings on it, but now, when I'm big, I do feel happy when I think of girls getting caned in school. Sometimes, when I return to my primary school, and looked into the class and saw teachers caning girls, I do feel very 'excited'"
Disturbing.
***
Disney movie! What the HELL are you doing taking
this quiz, Goldilocks?! You're not a very
sexual person...in fact, you're probably a
virgin. You'd be better off trying your hand at
voice-overs for a Saturday morning cartoon.
What kind of porno would you star in?
brought to you by Quizilla
***
Go Gold Ranger!
Gold...Ranger...
Quick as lightning, strong as steel..
Watch out danger, he's for real...
You know when lightning strikes, it's Gold Ranger!
All evil you can't stop him!
Gold Ranger, he's not droppin!
Watch out when lightning strikes, it's Gold Ranger!
Gold....Ranger..
Gold....Ranger..
Go Gold Ranger!
Gold...Ranger Go...
His Power has no fear..
A Golden force is here..
You know when thunder rolls it's Gold Ranger!
When darkness comes to town,
Gold Ranger can't back down..
Watch out, cuz lightning strikes, it's Gold Ranger!
Gold! Ran..ger! Go!
Ranger...danger...Ranger...
Here comes Gold Ranger! Woah!
Gold..Ranger..
Gold..Ranger..go Gold Ranger!
Gold..Ranger..
Gold..Ranger..
Go Gold Ranger!
How come they haven't had cool songs like these since Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie? The newest album I can find is mostly made up of old tracks - the only "new" track is an insipid remix of the Wild Force theme (the original sounds better), and the newest original song on it is "Best of the Best of the Best" (the Astro Delta Megazord finisher theme - that came out in 1998!!!) :( That said, something is wrong with Amazon.com - some of the track previews I clicked on sounded like a black rap song.
Post ID: 108566893191173973
Thursday, May 27, 2004
Michael Moore and Me - "A few years ago Michael Moore, who's now promoting an anti-President Bush movie entitled Fahrenheit 9/11, announced he'd gotten the goods on me, indeed hung me out to dry on my own words... The only problem is none of this is true. It never happened. Moore is a liar. He made it up. It's a fabrication"
More tales of his duplicity and dishonesty. I don't like Dubya either, but this is disturbing.
Regarding the Torture of Others - "Looking at these photographs, you ask yourself, How can someone grin at the sufferings and humiliation of another human being? [...] People do these things to other people... Americans, too, have done and do them when they are told, or made to feel, that those over whom they have absolute power deserve to be humiliated, tormented. They do them when they are led to believe that the people they are torturing belong to an inferior race or religion. For the meaning of these pictures is not just that these acts were performed, but that their perpetrators apparently had no sense that there was anything wrong in what the pictures show... Shock and the awful are what these photographs announce to the world that the Americans have delivered: a pattern of criminal behavior in open contempt of international humanitarian conventions."
"Broken Engagement " by Gen. Wesley Clark - "Recognizing the power of our values also means understanding their meaning. Freedom and dignity spring from within the human heart. They are not imposed. And inside the human heart is where the impetus for political change must be generated. The neoconservative rhetoric glosses over this truth and much else."
Puncturing neo-conservative delusions. So much for the road to Jerusalem lying through Baghdad.
Abu Ghraib: US security fiasco - "If your goal is to hang an innocent man, then torture is an expedient; he'll confess, eventually. But if your goal is to learn something you didn't already know, then you must use a different approach... Invading Iraq was big enough, and presumed easy enough, to satisfy the basic political requirements. That the Iraq campaign has actually undermined the war on terror is of no consequence in the Bush calculus. It looked like a mighty blow against the forces of evil, which is all that he and his entourage thought necessary."
Singapore: a model for China? - But as someone pointed out, in Singapore people trust the government, whereas they don't in China.
Arkansas woman has 15th child - Father says mother might want to have even more
...
Primary 6 students say goodbye to BCG vaccination - Argh. How did I miss this, 3 years ago? No more will generations be marked with 2 scars, but only with 1! Pity about the "smooth contour of many a slender left arm", then.
***
"You are so pure in mind and heart,
In aspect, too, so mild,
I wonder that you ever could
Implant your wife with child."
"Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes."
"There is nothing more debasing than the work of those who do well what is not worth doing at all."
***
Little known fact: Donating $5 to YACCS while you're not logged in can get you an account even though it stopped accepting new users in 2002.
***
More tales of his duplicity and dishonesty. I don't like Dubya either, but this is disturbing.
Regarding the Torture of Others - "Looking at these photographs, you ask yourself, How can someone grin at the sufferings and humiliation of another human being? [...] People do these things to other people... Americans, too, have done and do them when they are told, or made to feel, that those over whom they have absolute power deserve to be humiliated, tormented. They do them when they are led to believe that the people they are torturing belong to an inferior race or religion. For the meaning of these pictures is not just that these acts were performed, but that their perpetrators apparently had no sense that there was anything wrong in what the pictures show... Shock and the awful are what these photographs announce to the world that the Americans have delivered: a pattern of criminal behavior in open contempt of international humanitarian conventions."
"Broken Engagement " by Gen. Wesley Clark - "Recognizing the power of our values also means understanding their meaning. Freedom and dignity spring from within the human heart. They are not imposed. And inside the human heart is where the impetus for political change must be generated. The neoconservative rhetoric glosses over this truth and much else."
Puncturing neo-conservative delusions. So much for the road to Jerusalem lying through Baghdad.
Abu Ghraib: US security fiasco - "If your goal is to hang an innocent man, then torture is an expedient; he'll confess, eventually. But if your goal is to learn something you didn't already know, then you must use a different approach... Invading Iraq was big enough, and presumed easy enough, to satisfy the basic political requirements. That the Iraq campaign has actually undermined the war on terror is of no consequence in the Bush calculus. It looked like a mighty blow against the forces of evil, which is all that he and his entourage thought necessary."
Singapore: a model for China? - But as someone pointed out, in Singapore people trust the government, whereas they don't in China.
Arkansas woman has 15th child - Father says mother might want to have even more
...
Primary 6 students say goodbye to BCG vaccination - Argh. How did I miss this, 3 years ago? No more will generations be marked with 2 scars, but only with 1! Pity about the "smooth contour of many a slender left arm", then.
***
"You are so pure in mind and heart,
In aspect, too, so mild,
I wonder that you ever could
Implant your wife with child."
"Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes."
"There is nothing more debasing than the work of those who do well what is not worth doing at all."
***
Little known fact: Donating $5 to YACCS while you're not logged in can get you an account even though it stopped accepting new users in 2002.
***
Post ID: 108558013406372088
Tuesday, May 25, 2004
Combating negative thoughts/self-talk. Being a more balanced and healthy approach to such matters than indulging in needless self-delusion
(As you can see, I am currently fond of verbose titles, a la those of 19th century books)
1. All or none thinking
This refers to when we think that everything must be perfect or else it is a complete failure.
We need to realise that nothing can always be perfect. Also, when the situation is negative, it is never a complete failure.
2. Overgeneralisation
This refers to when we draw conclusions from our experiences of one situation and apply them to all our experiences.
We need to realise that one negative experience does not make the entire experience or situation a complete failure.
3. Focusing on the negative/ignoring the positive
This refers to when we think only of the negative in the situation and ignore the past or present evidence if the positive.
We need to ask ourselves if there are positive aspects to the situation.
4. Unnecessary self-blame
This refers to when we take inappropriate responsibility for situations that are beyond our control.
We need to acknowledge our responsibility for a situation but firmly reject unnecessary self-blame. When we make a mistake, we need to check whether our self-blame is consistent with the severity of our mistake.
5. Fortune telling
This refers to when we think that all sorts of disasters will occur without evidence.
We forget that we do not have supernatural powers and cannot predict disasters. When we make decisions, they are based on the facts that are available at that time. There is no way to know whether bad events are going to happen.
6. Mind reading
This refers to when we jump to conclusions without evidence.
We need to think of alternative explanations before we jump to conclusions without evidence.
7. Emotional reasoning
This refers to when we base our conclusions on our feelings instead of on the facts.
We need to remember that feelings are subjective and that facts are objective. We can never trust our feelings to tell us the facts.
8. Unrealistic attitudes/expectations
This refers to when we make impossible standards for ourselves or others to keep.
We need to ask ourselves the advantages or disadvantages of holding such beliefs. If the disadvantages outweight the advantages, and rigid adherence to these beliefs bring us pain and suffering, then it is time we discard our beliefs.
9. Labelling
This refers to when we use very harsh and extreme adjectives to label others or ourselves.
We should be aware that labelling others and ourselves based on behaviour is irrational, as we cannot understand our worth as persons by our actions.
--- Mostly transcribed from an unnamed source (because I found it too awkward to properly adapt)
Of course, putting this into practice is naturally easier said than done, but awareness is a good first step to solving the problem
***
After Abu Ghraib, we now know why bringing cameras and/or video cameras into SAF camps is considered a "security breach".
***
10 most flatulent beans
1. Soybeans
2. Pink beans
3. Black beans
4. Pinto beans
5. California small white beans
6. Great northern beans
7. Lima beans (baby)
8. Garbanzos
9. Lima beans (large)
10. Blackeyes
Source: Random True Facts
***
Cicadaville.com - Premier Cicada information source - "Cicadas are vicious killers. Cicadas prey on innocent children and pets. Cicadas are seething with deadly venom and flesh-eating bacteria. This year Cicadas will kill more people than snakes, spiders, scorpions, and sharks combined!"
The horrors exposed at Nuremberg: "on December 13, 1945, U. S. prosecutor Thomas Todd introduced USA Exhibit #253: tanned human tattooed skin from concentration camp victims, preserved for Isle Koch, the wife of the Commandant of Buchenwald, who liked to have the flesh fashioned into lampshades and other household objects for her home. Then Todd introduced USA Exhibit #254: the fist-shaped shrunken head of an executed Pole, used by Koch as a paperweight."
***
"I occasionally play works by contemporary composers for two reasons. First, to discourage the composer from writing any more and secondly to remind myself how much I appreciate Beethoven.
--- Jascha Heifetz"
(As you can see, I am currently fond of verbose titles, a la those of 19th century books)
1. All or none thinking
This refers to when we think that everything must be perfect or else it is a complete failure.
We need to realise that nothing can always be perfect. Also, when the situation is negative, it is never a complete failure.
2. Overgeneralisation
This refers to when we draw conclusions from our experiences of one situation and apply them to all our experiences.
We need to realise that one negative experience does not make the entire experience or situation a complete failure.
3. Focusing on the negative/ignoring the positive
This refers to when we think only of the negative in the situation and ignore the past or present evidence if the positive.
We need to ask ourselves if there are positive aspects to the situation.
4. Unnecessary self-blame
This refers to when we take inappropriate responsibility for situations that are beyond our control.
We need to acknowledge our responsibility for a situation but firmly reject unnecessary self-blame. When we make a mistake, we need to check whether our self-blame is consistent with the severity of our mistake.
5. Fortune telling
This refers to when we think that all sorts of disasters will occur without evidence.
We forget that we do not have supernatural powers and cannot predict disasters. When we make decisions, they are based on the facts that are available at that time. There is no way to know whether bad events are going to happen.
6. Mind reading
This refers to when we jump to conclusions without evidence.
We need to think of alternative explanations before we jump to conclusions without evidence.
7. Emotional reasoning
This refers to when we base our conclusions on our feelings instead of on the facts.
We need to remember that feelings are subjective and that facts are objective. We can never trust our feelings to tell us the facts.
8. Unrealistic attitudes/expectations
This refers to when we make impossible standards for ourselves or others to keep.
We need to ask ourselves the advantages or disadvantages of holding such beliefs. If the disadvantages outweight the advantages, and rigid adherence to these beliefs bring us pain and suffering, then it is time we discard our beliefs.
9. Labelling
This refers to when we use very harsh and extreme adjectives to label others or ourselves.
We should be aware that labelling others and ourselves based on behaviour is irrational, as we cannot understand our worth as persons by our actions.
--- Mostly transcribed from an unnamed source (because I found it too awkward to properly adapt)
Of course, putting this into practice is naturally easier said than done, but awareness is a good first step to solving the problem
***
After Abu Ghraib, we now know why bringing cameras and/or video cameras into SAF camps is considered a "security breach".
***
10 most flatulent beans
1. Soybeans
2. Pink beans
3. Black beans
4. Pinto beans
5. California small white beans
6. Great northern beans
7. Lima beans (baby)
8. Garbanzos
9. Lima beans (large)
10. Blackeyes
Source: Random True Facts
***
Cicadaville.com - Premier Cicada information source - "Cicadas are vicious killers. Cicadas prey on innocent children and pets. Cicadas are seething with deadly venom and flesh-eating bacteria. This year Cicadas will kill more people than snakes, spiders, scorpions, and sharks combined!"
The horrors exposed at Nuremberg: "on December 13, 1945, U. S. prosecutor Thomas Todd introduced USA Exhibit #253: tanned human tattooed skin from concentration camp victims, preserved for Isle Koch, the wife of the Commandant of Buchenwald, who liked to have the flesh fashioned into lampshades and other household objects for her home. Then Todd introduced USA Exhibit #254: the fist-shaped shrunken head of an executed Pole, used by Koch as a paperweight."
***
"I occasionally play works by contemporary composers for two reasons. First, to discourage the composer from writing any more and secondly to remind myself how much I appreciate Beethoven.
--- Jascha Heifetz"
Post ID: 108530191513952477
Sunday, May 23, 2004
Strunkenwhite Virus - Named Strunkenwhite after the authors of a classic guide to good writing, it returns e-mail messages that have grammatical or spelling errors. It is deadly accurate in its detection abilities, unlike the dubious spell checkers that come with word processing programs... "I got back this error message: 'Your dependent clause preceding your independent clause must be set off by commas, but one must not precede the conjunction.' I threw my laptop across the room."
The Jesus Landing Pad - Bush White House checked with rapture Christians before latest Israel move: "The problem is not that George W. Bush is discussing policy with people who press right-wing solutions to achieve peace in the Middle East, or with devout Christians. It is that he is discussing policy with Christians who might not care about peace at all - at least until the rapture."
Somehow I'm not surprised, though the actions of some staffers may not be representative of the beliefs of the rest.
H.S. Student Hospitalized After Drinking Lab Chemical On A Dare - "A student who drank a chemical from his high school lab on a dare was recovering in a hospital, but not before a scare. The student drank the unidentified chemical on a two-dollar bet at the school"
Well done!
Can ‘Star Wars: Episode III’ be saved? - "Fire Lucas, fire Christensen and resurrect Ed Wood from the grave"
I didn't think Episodes I and II were that bad - it's probably the "all new movies suck and only old ones are good - the last good movie was Casablanca" syndrome again. Though I *do* have low standards for movies.
BUSHGAME.COM - THE ANTI-BUSH ONLINE ADVENTURE
It was funny till Voltron appeared and weird things started happening for no particular reason
***
What To Do When Your Woman Gets Lazy
"Your woman has become a wrinkled vegetable in the relationship, that much is clear at this point. Needless to say, she is not going to do anything about it. So, if you're serious about keeping her around, then you'll likely have to take the initiative. Here are a few tips.
The Star System
Go to your local supermarket and get yourself a little notebook and a few packs of those little foil star stickers. Each day, whenever your woman does something worth noticing, give her a star or two.
For example, if she actually makes herself look half decent, give her a star. If she makes you a great dinner and asks about your day, give her two. If she wakes you up with oral sex, well maybe you shouldn't be complaining to begin with. Then you can set up an award system for a set number of stars that she receives.
Think of it as a Pavlovian experiment. Apply positive reinforcement and teach her what she has to do if she wants to receive a treat. Once she starts racking up some points, then you can use the following to treat her to something exquisite.
5 stars: A personal massage
10 stars: Dinner at a nice restaurant
15 stars : A sexy outfit
20 stars : A treatment at a day spa
25 stars : A piece of jewelry
50 stars: A weekend getaway
100 stars: ...Time to propose
Nip the problem in the bud…"
A moot problem for those without women.
***
"i just know who he is from hanging around USP Chatterbox
but i have an inkling i knew him way back as PaRaDoX
he used to haunt the girls' school channels if i'm not wrong"
LOL
***
"They have taken evil and called it good, under the banner of self-righteousness, and by this they justify the most horrible ideas and wishes and then have the gall to pretend they believe in love."
***
Search referrals:
"scgs" and "tampons" - How are these 2 words related, anyway?
15yr sluts - I keep getting this. Why 15? Why not 14, 13 or 16? Maybe they are old enough so you escape the charge of statutory rape but still young enough to be enticing. Uh huh.
sggirls alternative - You could try Photoforum.
nus dragonboat ladies
Raffles Girls' Secondary school spinster
gabriel touch my tralala - Have I become linked inextricably with that song?
lindy england gang bang - Who's Lindy?
raffles lasalle sucks
bestiality chicken hen duck - Isn't poultry too small for those purposes?
woman oops losing ther tops swimming river oops
"pork fat bombs"
vending machine loaning service in singapore
bougainvilla (chemical composition)
sentosa foam party grope
tekong masterbate
children's quizzes for bandaging
42sar telephone number
removing gallstones alternative bullshit
spear parts for nokia 8910i - Ouch.
free stories as kid like dog lick genitals
nurse haemodialysis jokes - Someone would have to be very deprived to make such jokes.
self-help books "funny titles" - I like "Chicken soup for the golfer's soul"
ramadan footies - What's a footy?
mgs sizzlers - Apparently that's the name of the MGS Cheerleaders
saf blog smokers - Why would anyone look for this, I wonder.
pap enslaving the people of singapore
zoo matrix-the biggest bestiality site ! - Can't they just visit the site itself?
pierced "scgs" - Pierced where, I wonder? A fourchette perchance? Mayhap a Princess Diana? How about an Isabella? I wonder if the Princess Albertina is the female equivalent of the Prince Albert.
chij kinky
40p bra girl photo - So cheap?
bit torrent sentai downloads - If only!
wang yi blogspot - Try elsewhere. I can tell you this does exist.
"swallow listerine"
alternative scaffold "breast enhancement" -pill -herb -herbs -tablet -herbal -tablets -pills - You could always try the massage they teach in Thailand.
Organisation structure of BreadTalk - Another referral I keep getting these days. Corporate espionage?
"worst school uniform" "ankle OR knee socks" - Both suck
Villacellino
asian coke bottle insertion - Where, I wonder?
r@ygold must be stopped - Indeed.
enid blyton critics sexism racism - Bah. You find what you want to find.
thaipusam holy spirit - Nothing to do with each other.
women raped in paros, greece - Why should the location matter?
singapore spaghetti straps girls
what causes friggin typhoons
jerald fried, jewelry display systems,
female assassins asphyxiate - How do they do that, I wonder?
Gabriel fashion model singapore
how do sammyboy earn money? - Something I always wanted to know
SIA flight stewardess failure medical test
how long will be son need off school after his gynaecomastia operation?
"liters of cum" drinking - I've never understood bukkake
Raffles brain haemorrhage - Maybe they studied too hard.
pictures of forceps spreading womens vaginas
kids Disguise power ranger
photos of singaporean muslim ladies wearing veil
budist teaching homosexual - Is it?
tony blair anorexic daughter
tudung at a stall racism - Tudungs are racist?
Are Buddhists allowed to dye their hair? - Why not?
food beniah breakfast
lolita boys 11yr - Doesn't the word usually refer to girls?
The Jesus Landing Pad - Bush White House checked with rapture Christians before latest Israel move: "The problem is not that George W. Bush is discussing policy with people who press right-wing solutions to achieve peace in the Middle East, or with devout Christians. It is that he is discussing policy with Christians who might not care about peace at all - at least until the rapture."
Somehow I'm not surprised, though the actions of some staffers may not be representative of the beliefs of the rest.
H.S. Student Hospitalized After Drinking Lab Chemical On A Dare - "A student who drank a chemical from his high school lab on a dare was recovering in a hospital, but not before a scare. The student drank the unidentified chemical on a two-dollar bet at the school"
Well done!
Can ‘Star Wars: Episode III’ be saved? - "Fire Lucas, fire Christensen and resurrect Ed Wood from the grave"
I didn't think Episodes I and II were that bad - it's probably the "all new movies suck and only old ones are good - the last good movie was Casablanca" syndrome again. Though I *do* have low standards for movies.
BUSHGAME.COM - THE ANTI-BUSH ONLINE ADVENTURE
It was funny till Voltron appeared and weird things started happening for no particular reason
***
What To Do When Your Woman Gets Lazy
"Your woman has become a wrinkled vegetable in the relationship, that much is clear at this point. Needless to say, she is not going to do anything about it. So, if you're serious about keeping her around, then you'll likely have to take the initiative. Here are a few tips.
The Star System
Go to your local supermarket and get yourself a little notebook and a few packs of those little foil star stickers. Each day, whenever your woman does something worth noticing, give her a star or two.
For example, if she actually makes herself look half decent, give her a star. If she makes you a great dinner and asks about your day, give her two. If she wakes you up with oral sex, well maybe you shouldn't be complaining to begin with. Then you can set up an award system for a set number of stars that she receives.
Think of it as a Pavlovian experiment. Apply positive reinforcement and teach her what she has to do if she wants to receive a treat. Once she starts racking up some points, then you can use the following to treat her to something exquisite.
5 stars: A personal massage
10 stars: Dinner at a nice restaurant
15 stars : A sexy outfit
20 stars : A treatment at a day spa
25 stars : A piece of jewelry
50 stars: A weekend getaway
100 stars: ...Time to propose
Nip the problem in the bud…"
A moot problem for those without women.
***
"i just know who he is from hanging around USP Chatterbox
but i have an inkling i knew him way back as PaRaDoX
he used to haunt the girls' school channels if i'm not wrong"
LOL
***
"They have taken evil and called it good, under the banner of self-righteousness, and by this they justify the most horrible ideas and wishes and then have the gall to pretend they believe in love."
***
Search referrals:
"scgs" and "tampons" - How are these 2 words related, anyway?
15yr sluts - I keep getting this. Why 15? Why not 14, 13 or 16? Maybe they are old enough so you escape the charge of statutory rape but still young enough to be enticing. Uh huh.
sggirls alternative - You could try Photoforum.
nus dragonboat ladies
Raffles Girls' Secondary school spinster
gabriel touch my tralala - Have I become linked inextricably with that song?
lindy england gang bang - Who's Lindy?
raffles lasalle sucks
bestiality chicken hen duck - Isn't poultry too small for those purposes?
woman oops losing ther tops swimming river oops
"pork fat bombs"
vending machine loaning service in singapore
bougainvilla (chemical composition)
sentosa foam party grope
tekong masterbate
children's quizzes for bandaging
42sar telephone number
removing gallstones alternative bullshit
spear parts for nokia 8910i - Ouch.
free stories as kid like dog lick genitals
nurse haemodialysis jokes - Someone would have to be very deprived to make such jokes.
self-help books "funny titles" - I like "Chicken soup for the golfer's soul"
ramadan footies - What's a footy?
mgs sizzlers - Apparently that's the name of the MGS Cheerleaders
saf blog smokers - Why would anyone look for this, I wonder.
pap enslaving the people of singapore
zoo matrix-the biggest bestiality site ! - Can't they just visit the site itself?
pierced "scgs" - Pierced where, I wonder? A fourchette perchance? Mayhap a Princess Diana? How about an Isabella? I wonder if the Princess Albertina is the female equivalent of the Prince Albert.
chij kinky
40p bra girl photo - So cheap?
bit torrent sentai downloads - If only!
wang yi blogspot - Try elsewhere. I can tell you this does exist.
"swallow listerine"
alternative scaffold "breast enhancement" -pill -herb -herbs -tablet -herbal -tablets -pills - You could always try the massage they teach in Thailand.
Organisation structure of BreadTalk - Another referral I keep getting these days. Corporate espionage?
"worst school uniform" "ankle OR knee socks" - Both suck
Villacellino
asian coke bottle insertion - Where, I wonder?
r@ygold must be stopped - Indeed.
enid blyton critics sexism racism - Bah. You find what you want to find.
thaipusam holy spirit - Nothing to do with each other.
women raped in paros, greece - Why should the location matter?
singapore spaghetti straps girls
what causes friggin typhoons
jerald fried, jewelry display systems,
female assassins asphyxiate - How do they do that, I wonder?
Gabriel fashion model singapore
how do sammyboy earn money? - Something I always wanted to know
SIA flight stewardess failure medical test
how long will be son need off school after his gynaecomastia operation?
"liters of cum" drinking - I've never understood bukkake
Raffles brain haemorrhage - Maybe they studied too hard.
pictures of forceps spreading womens vaginas
kids Disguise power ranger
photos of singaporean muslim ladies wearing veil
budist teaching homosexual - Is it?
tony blair anorexic daughter
tudung at a stall racism - Tudungs are racist?
Are Buddhists allowed to dye their hair? - Why not?
food beniah breakfast
lolita boys 11yr - Doesn't the word usually refer to girls?
Post ID: 108525292964888408
Saturday, May 22, 2004
A girl goes into the doctor's office for a checkup. As she takes off her blouse, he notices a red "H" on her chest.
"How did you get that mark on your chest?" asks the doctor.
"Oh, my boyfriend went to Harvard and he's so proud of it that he never takes off his Harvard sweatshirt, even when we make love," she replies.
A couple of days later, another girl comes in for a checkup. As she takes off her blouse, he notices a blue "Y" on her chest. "How did you get that mark on your chest?" asks the doctor.
"Oh, my boyfriend went to Yale and he's so proud of it that he never takes off his Yale sweatshirt, even when we make love," she replies.
A couple of days later, another girl comes in for a checkup. As she takes off her blouse, he notices a green "M" on her chest. "Do you have a boyfriend at Michigan?" asks the doctor.
"No, but I have a girlfriend at Wisconsin. Why do you ask?"
"How did you get that mark on your chest?" asks the doctor.
"Oh, my boyfriend went to Harvard and he's so proud of it that he never takes off his Harvard sweatshirt, even when we make love," she replies.
A couple of days later, another girl comes in for a checkup. As she takes off her blouse, he notices a blue "Y" on her chest. "How did you get that mark on your chest?" asks the doctor.
"Oh, my boyfriend went to Yale and he's so proud of it that he never takes off his Yale sweatshirt, even when we make love," she replies.
A couple of days later, another girl comes in for a checkup. As she takes off her blouse, he notices a green "M" on her chest. "Do you have a boyfriend at Michigan?" asks the doctor.
"No, but I have a girlfriend at Wisconsin. Why do you ask?"
Post ID: 108521003491773296
Top pronunciation mistakes observed:
Secretary being mistaken for secretory. i.e. "Doctor, here's a bad case of secretary diarrhoea"
Epididymis (part of the male genitalia) being mistaken for Epidermitis (as in Staphylococcus epidermitis, a bacteria that grows naturally on your skin). Happens so often in tutorials!
Secretary being mistaken for secretory. i.e. "Doctor, here's a bad case of secretary diarrhoea"
Epididymis (part of the male genitalia) being mistaken for Epidermitis (as in Staphylococcus epidermitis, a bacteria that grows naturally on your skin). Happens so often in tutorials!
Post ID: 108520216874585126
All Things Dull and Ugly
All things dull and ugly,
All creatures short and squat,
All things rude and nasty,
The Lord God made the lot.
Each little snake that poisons,
Each little wasp that stings,
He made their brutish venom.
He made their horrid wings.
All things sick and cancerous,
All evil great and small,
All things foul and dangerous,
The Lord God made them all.
Each nasty little hornet,
Each beastly little squid--
Who made the spikey urchin?
Who made the sharks? He did!
All things scabbed and ulcerous,
All pox both great and small,
Putrid, foul and gangrenous,
The Lord God made them all.
Amen.
The problem of evil gets its bite from the thought that if God made the world then he is responsible not only for its splendour but also for its flaws. This thought led Monty Python’s Eric Idle to rewrite the hymn “All Things Bright and Beautiful” as “All Things Dull and Ugly”.
LOL
All things dull and ugly,
All creatures short and squat,
All things rude and nasty,
The Lord God made the lot.
Each little snake that poisons,
Each little wasp that stings,
He made their brutish venom.
He made their horrid wings.
All things sick and cancerous,
All evil great and small,
All things foul and dangerous,
The Lord God made them all.
Each nasty little hornet,
Each beastly little squid--
Who made the spikey urchin?
Who made the sharks? He did!
All things scabbed and ulcerous,
All pox both great and small,
Putrid, foul and gangrenous,
The Lord God made them all.
Amen.
The problem of evil gets its bite from the thought that if God made the world then he is responsible not only for its splendour but also for its flaws. This thought led Monty Python’s Eric Idle to rewrite the hymn “All Things Bright and Beautiful” as “All Things Dull and Ugly”.
LOL
Post ID: 108519753145851483
Friday, May 21, 2004
Dingalingalingaling
BOOP BOO BOOP BA DOOP!
BOOP BOO BOOP BA DOOP!
Ring ring ring ring ring ring ring - Banana phone
Ring ring ring ring ring ring ring - Banana phone
I've got this feeling, so appealing
For us to get together, and sing, sing!
Ring ring ring ring ring ring ring - Banana phone
Ding dong ding dong ding dong ding - Danana phone
It grows in bunches, I've got my hunches
It's the best, beats the rest,
cellular, modular, interactive-odular
Ring ring ring ring ring ring ring - Banana phone
BOOP BOO BOOP BA DOOP!
Ping pong ping pong ping pong ping - panana phone
It's no baloney, it ain't a phony
My cellular, bananular phone
Don't need quarters, don't need dimes, to call a friend of mine.
Don't need computer or TV to have a real good time.
I'll call for pizza, I'll call my cat, I'll call the White House, have a chat.
I'll place a call around the world,
Operator get me Beijing jing jing jing
Yeess!
Play that thing!
Yooo hoo!
Ring ring ring ring ring ring ring - Banana phone
BOOP BOO BOOP BA DOOP!
Ying yang ying yang ying - Yanana phone
It's real live momma-and-pappa-phone, a brother and sister and a dog-o-phone,
A grandpa phone and a gramophone,
My cellular, bananular phone!
Banana phone - Ring, ring ring.
It's a phone with a peel!
Banana phone - Ring, ring ring.
Now you can have your phone and eat it too!
Banana phone - Ring, ring ring
This song drives me bananas
Banana phone - Ring, ring ring
Singapore Discussion Network
"When broken English and the internet collide, it's the Singapore Discussion Network! No, it's a "disease". Even if it's meant as a joke I feel dirty saying that."
Singaporean English hits SomethingAwful.
My new record for popping the champagne is 57 seconds!
"i think tai mai shu another disgrace to asians
and gunther is a disgrace to mankind
and he has a mullet like wohen"
BOOP BOO BOOP BA DOOP!
BOOP BOO BOOP BA DOOP!
Ring ring ring ring ring ring ring - Banana phone
Ring ring ring ring ring ring ring - Banana phone
I've got this feeling, so appealing
For us to get together, and sing, sing!
Ring ring ring ring ring ring ring - Banana phone
Ding dong ding dong ding dong ding - Danana phone
It grows in bunches, I've got my hunches
It's the best, beats the rest,
cellular, modular, interactive-odular
Ring ring ring ring ring ring ring - Banana phone
BOOP BOO BOOP BA DOOP!
Ping pong ping pong ping pong ping - panana phone
It's no baloney, it ain't a phony
My cellular, bananular phone
Don't need quarters, don't need dimes, to call a friend of mine.
Don't need computer or TV to have a real good time.
I'll call for pizza, I'll call my cat, I'll call the White House, have a chat.
I'll place a call around the world,
Operator get me Beijing jing jing jing
Yeess!
Play that thing!
Yooo hoo!
Ring ring ring ring ring ring ring - Banana phone
BOOP BOO BOOP BA DOOP!
Ying yang ying yang ying - Yanana phone
It's real live momma-and-pappa-phone, a brother and sister and a dog-o-phone,
A grandpa phone and a gramophone,
My cellular, bananular phone!
Banana phone - Ring, ring ring.
It's a phone with a peel!
Banana phone - Ring, ring ring.
Now you can have your phone and eat it too!
Banana phone - Ring, ring ring
This song drives me bananas
Banana phone - Ring, ring ring
Singapore Discussion Network
"When broken English and the internet collide, it's the Singapore Discussion Network! No, it's a "disease". Even if it's meant as a joke I feel dirty saying that."
Singaporean English hits SomethingAwful.
My new record for popping the champagne is 57 seconds!
"i think tai mai shu another disgrace to asians
and gunther is a disgrace to mankind
and he has a mullet like wohen"
Post ID: 108515010487091083
Some people, mostly Singaporeans insecure about the Great Chinese Tradition (TM) and wondering if it is dying a lonesome and pitiful death, think that the mere fact that someone is of Chinese descent means that they must speak Chinese with at least a modicum of fluency. A few even think that ethnic Chinese must conform at least superficially to their rigid notions of what "Chinese" must be. Those who do not are derisively labelled "Bananas": "Yellow on the outside, White on the inside".
Leaving separate the fact that most Singaporean Chinese cannot even speak a full sentence in Chinese without lapsing into English for some of the more difficult nouns - words like "weather", "game" and "TV", what is there about race that obliges people to conform to certain archetypes?
To avoid accusations of being turncoats, how far do ethnic Chinese have to conform? Must they like eating Chinese food? How about believing in acupuncture instead of quack Western medicine? Do they have to bind the feet of their women? Prefer sons over daughters, perhaps participating in the great Chinese tradition of infanticide? Must they even worship the traditional Chinese Gods? How about ethnic Arabs? Must they be Muslim?
Anyhow, Mandarin (or Putonghua, if you prefer), is not the only tongue spoken in China, arbitrarily selected by the central government to be elevated above the rest (primarily because it is a Northern Tongue). The true language of the forefathers is actually the dialect of your respective dialect group.
People accuse who accuse many Singaporeans of being Bananas (yellow on the outside, white on the inside) presumably think it better to be yellow through and through. Incidentally, that describes urine.
Maybe I should start reading the Straits Times again so that, in addition to learning who got killed, raped, molested, knocked down by a van or conned into buying a Magic Stone, I can find out the latest subjects that obsessive idiots rant shrilly about, and rant equally shrilly in reply.
Leaving separate the fact that most Singaporean Chinese cannot even speak a full sentence in Chinese without lapsing into English for some of the more difficult nouns - words like "weather", "game" and "TV", what is there about race that obliges people to conform to certain archetypes?
To avoid accusations of being turncoats, how far do ethnic Chinese have to conform? Must they like eating Chinese food? How about believing in acupuncture instead of quack Western medicine? Do they have to bind the feet of their women? Prefer sons over daughters, perhaps participating in the great Chinese tradition of infanticide? Must they even worship the traditional Chinese Gods? How about ethnic Arabs? Must they be Muslim?
Anyhow, Mandarin (or Putonghua, if you prefer), is not the only tongue spoken in China, arbitrarily selected by the central government to be elevated above the rest (primarily because it is a Northern Tongue). The true language of the forefathers is actually the dialect of your respective dialect group.
People accuse who accuse many Singaporeans of being Bananas (yellow on the outside, white on the inside) presumably think it better to be yellow through and through. Incidentally, that describes urine.
Maybe I should start reading the Straits Times again so that, in addition to learning who got killed, raped, molested, knocked down by a van or conned into buying a Magic Stone, I can find out the latest subjects that obsessive idiots rant shrilly about, and rant equally shrilly in reply.
Post ID: 108514659335037274
Is the "Ninja Death Touch" real - "Known in Cantonese as dim mak and in Japanese as kyusho jitsu, the touch of death is said to be something like acupuncture's evil twin."
The History of the Hello Kitty Vibrator - Apparently it was meant to be a "Hello Kitty vibrating shoulder massager"
Famous Trials - UMKC School of Law - Prof. Douglas Linder - Fair, balanced and considered, even for such controversial trials as that of Jesus
Pessimism and Boys (on The Diary of a Soviet Schoolgirl 1932-37 by Nina Lugovskaya) - "The basic themes of Nina L.'s diary were, in her own words, 'pessimism and boys, boys and pessimism'. 'Pessimism' (depression) was a fundamental condition of her life between the ages of 13 and 16: irritation, boredom, misery, a feeling of futility and emptiness, disgust at herself and an anguished sense of being unattractive pervade the diary's early years."
List Of Actual Subtitles Used In Films Made In Hongkong - "You always use violence. I should've ordered glutinous rice chicken."
Nick Berg's Killing: 50 Fishy Circumstances, Contradictory Claims, and Videotape Anomalies - I'm not one for Conspiracy Theories, but that tape is indeed very fishy, from what people have noticed. Among other things, the lack of blood and struggling. Though not all of the 50 points are equally lucid (one was that many of the people beheading Nick Berg have pasty white hands)
Childless couple told to try sex - A German couple who went to a fertility clinic after eight years of marriage have found out why they are still childless - they weren't having sex. [...] 'We are not talking retarded people here, but a couple who were brought up in a religious environment who were simply unaware, after eight years of marriage, of the physical requirements necessary to procreate.
That's what you get when you make something natural and essential to life taboo and sinful. Maybe they need to commission a few of the statues of Buddhas in various sexual positions that innocent royal newlyweds used to be shown to touch and gain wordlessly the knowledge they needed (if my memory of this topic in 'Sex In History' is correct)
In Memory of the Sexually Mutilated Child - I've always been against Male Genital Mutilation (aka Male Circumcision), but the arguments advanced on this page verge on rabid screams.
The Roots of Torture - A Newsweek investigation detailing how after 9/11, Rummy and friends gradually edged their way around the Geneva convention, nurturing an atmosphere conducive to the perpetration of what happened at Abu Ghraib
The $1,000 Omelette - 10 ounces of Sevruga caviar and a 1 pound, 8 ounce lobster. The very thought of it gives me atherosclerosis.
Naked students in rollercoaster world record - "Around 100 students from 15 universities have stripped off to create a new world record for the most naked people on a rollercoaster. They rode the terrifying 360-degree Nemesis Inferno rollercoaster at Thorpe Park, in Surrey, earlier today. The record attempt has helped raise cash for good causes as the park is promising to pay £1,000 to a university Rag committee for the best group photograph on board the ride."
The History of the Hello Kitty Vibrator - Apparently it was meant to be a "Hello Kitty vibrating shoulder massager"
Famous Trials - UMKC School of Law - Prof. Douglas Linder - Fair, balanced and considered, even for such controversial trials as that of Jesus
Pessimism and Boys (on The Diary of a Soviet Schoolgirl 1932-37 by Nina Lugovskaya) - "The basic themes of Nina L.'s diary were, in her own words, 'pessimism and boys, boys and pessimism'. 'Pessimism' (depression) was a fundamental condition of her life between the ages of 13 and 16: irritation, boredom, misery, a feeling of futility and emptiness, disgust at herself and an anguished sense of being unattractive pervade the diary's early years."
List Of Actual Subtitles Used In Films Made In Hongkong - "You always use violence. I should've ordered glutinous rice chicken."
Nick Berg's Killing: 50 Fishy Circumstances, Contradictory Claims, and Videotape Anomalies - I'm not one for Conspiracy Theories, but that tape is indeed very fishy, from what people have noticed. Among other things, the lack of blood and struggling. Though not all of the 50 points are equally lucid (one was that many of the people beheading Nick Berg have pasty white hands)
Childless couple told to try sex - A German couple who went to a fertility clinic after eight years of marriage have found out why they are still childless - they weren't having sex. [...] 'We are not talking retarded people here, but a couple who were brought up in a religious environment who were simply unaware, after eight years of marriage, of the physical requirements necessary to procreate.
That's what you get when you make something natural and essential to life taboo and sinful. Maybe they need to commission a few of the statues of Buddhas in various sexual positions that innocent royal newlyweds used to be shown to touch and gain wordlessly the knowledge they needed (if my memory of this topic in 'Sex In History' is correct)
In Memory of the Sexually Mutilated Child - I've always been against Male Genital Mutilation (aka Male Circumcision), but the arguments advanced on this page verge on rabid screams.
The Roots of Torture - A Newsweek investigation detailing how after 9/11, Rummy and friends gradually edged their way around the Geneva convention, nurturing an atmosphere conducive to the perpetration of what happened at Abu Ghraib
The $1,000 Omelette - 10 ounces of Sevruga caviar and a 1 pound, 8 ounce lobster. The very thought of it gives me atherosclerosis.
Naked students in rollercoaster world record - "Around 100 students from 15 universities have stripped off to create a new world record for the most naked people on a rollercoaster. They rode the terrifying 360-degree Nemesis Inferno rollercoaster at Thorpe Park, in Surrey, earlier today. The record attempt has helped raise cash for good causes as the park is promising to pay £1,000 to a university Rag committee for the best group photograph on board the ride."
Post ID: 108513814302163024
Assorted Shorts
(because, for unspecified reasons, I have not felt like blogging in the past few days)
"well its harmless fun.. and someone has to do it..." - On my puerile tendencies
***
Maybe the Brazillian guys who used to ask me for cyber-BDSM on ICQ were attracted by the words "Gabriel is a slave" in my ICQ info.
Hmm.
***
And now we have the The Skeptic's Annotated Book of Mormon.
Industrious fella. I wonder if he's going to tackle the Vedic Sutras next :0
***
To nw.t:
Quoth I,
"Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest: this shall be the portion of their cup."
Cringe, fellow heathen, for The Worst Is Yet To Be.
***
Question about Knights of the Old Republic: They didn't answer a seminal question - what turned Revan, Malak, Saul and friends to the Dark Side in the first place? I thought this was quite an important mystery.
***
I've always asserted that Oil Control Film (blue tracing paper) is an evil plot by Cosmetics Companies to con foolish and gullible females of their money.
The Top Bio Student in NJC in his year, whom I cannot refer to him as "Poor Suffering" anymore since he isn't suffering any longer, confirmed my suspicions when he said that he'd tried it before and it was useless.
The thing is, oil shows up very clearly on the tracing paper, so it gives people a false high on seeing how much oil has been absorbed from their faces.
***
Salon.com Comics | Tom the Dancing Bug - News of the Times: Bush discovered to be an Evil Cybord, Kerry still lags in polls
For those too lazy to get the Salon daypass, a transcript follows:
Panel 1
Blurb: At a G.O.P fundraiser, an errant butter knife accidentally sliced President Bush's face, revealing him to be an evil cyborg
Bush: Yes, I'm an Evil Cyborg programmed by Subterranean Mutants to destroy America. I accept responsibility for that... but not any blame or negative consequences.
Panel 2
Blurb: Senator Kerry was unable to make any political hay over the revelation, as he had his own imbroglio over what he did with his medals for heroism 30 years ago.
Kerry: I never said I threw seven medals, I said I threw several ribbons.
Panel 3
Blurb: Bush vigorously defenced his record.
Bush (with Evil Cyborg head): You have to ask one question: Is the world better off without Saddam Hussein? Just ask that one question! Do not ask any other questions!
Panel 4
Blurb: Vice President Cheney, revealed last week to be a Brain-Craving Zombie, faced the press.
Reporter: The Democrats are suggesting that the horrifying and catastrophic events of Bush's term could be related
Cheney (eating a grey brain): They're politicizing the fact that the President is an Evil Cyborg! It's shameful.
Panel 5
Blurb: American voters seem to agree and still favor Bush over Kerry.
Voter: Kerry seems sorta wishy-washy. Imagine how he could mess things up if he were President.
***
This is so bad, it's good
"Growth caused by chickens that have been injected by Steroids
This is a true story! I am very concerned about the health of the people out there especially the women’s!
A friend of mine recently had a growth in her womb and she underwent an operation to remove the cyst. The cyst removed was filled with a dark coloured blood.
She thought that she would be recovered after the surgery but she was terribly wrong. A relapse occurred just a few months later. Distressed, she rushed down to her gynecologist for a consultation. During her consultation, her doctor asked her a question that puzzled her. He ask if she was a frequent consumer of chicken wings and she replied yes wondering as to how, he knew of her eating habits.
You see, the truth is in this modern day and age, chickens are injected with steroids to accelerate their growth so that the needs of this society can be met. This need is none other then the need for food. Chickens that are injected with steroids are usually given the shot at the neck or the wings. Therefore, it is in this places that the highest concentration of steroids exist.
These steroids have terrifying effects on the body as it accelerates growth. It has an even more dangerous effect in the presence of female hormones, this leads to women being more prone to the growth of a cyst in the womb.
Therefore, I advise the people out there to watch their diets and to lower their frequency of consuming chicken wings!
People who receive this email, please forward it to your friends and loved ones. I’m sure no one wants to see him or her suffer!
Take care and god bless!"
Now, anyone with half a brain would be struck by the following:
1) The lymphatic and circulatory system circulate the putative steroids around the chickens' bodies and have a systemic, as opposed to a localised effect. If this were not the case, it would be useless to pump steroids into them, unless you wanted otherwise normal chickens with Gigantic Wings.
2) Why would steroids for chickens necessarily affect humans? And if humans and chickens have similar physiologies such that they'd both be affected by the steroids, why did the story's protagonist suddenly develop huge muscles, or the chickens abdominal cysts?
3) Steroids largely consist of hormones, which get denatured by heat. Unless our dear protagonist was fond of eating the wings raw, most of the hormones would have been deactivated by the time she ate them (not to mention what the peptic acids and enzymes would do to them)
4) Males have female hormones too, though to a lesser degree. How come these steroids don't affect them as well?
5) If even our good doctor (or gynaecologist, if you prefer) knows about this dastardly plot, why hasn't he alerted the authorities? Mmm, conspiracy theory.
Moral of the story: Think before you forward crap.
(because, for unspecified reasons, I have not felt like blogging in the past few days)
"well its harmless fun.. and someone has to do it..." - On my puerile tendencies
***
Maybe the Brazillian guys who used to ask me for cyber-BDSM on ICQ were attracted by the words "Gabriel is a slave" in my ICQ info.
Hmm.
***
And now we have the The Skeptic's Annotated Book of Mormon.
Industrious fella. I wonder if he's going to tackle the Vedic Sutras next :0
***
To nw.t:
Quoth I,
"Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest: this shall be the portion of their cup."
Cringe, fellow heathen, for The Worst Is Yet To Be.
***
Question about Knights of the Old Republic: They didn't answer a seminal question - what turned Revan, Malak, Saul and friends to the Dark Side in the first place? I thought this was quite an important mystery.
***
I've always asserted that Oil Control Film (blue tracing paper) is an evil plot by Cosmetics Companies to con foolish and gullible females of their money.
The Top Bio Student in NJC in his year, whom I cannot refer to him as "Poor Suffering" anymore since he isn't suffering any longer, confirmed my suspicions when he said that he'd tried it before and it was useless.
The thing is, oil shows up very clearly on the tracing paper, so it gives people a false high on seeing how much oil has been absorbed from their faces.
***
Salon.com Comics | Tom the Dancing Bug - News of the Times: Bush discovered to be an Evil Cybord, Kerry still lags in polls
For those too lazy to get the Salon daypass, a transcript follows:
Panel 1
Blurb: At a G.O.P fundraiser, an errant butter knife accidentally sliced President Bush's face, revealing him to be an evil cyborg
Bush: Yes, I'm an Evil Cyborg programmed by Subterranean Mutants to destroy America. I accept responsibility for that... but not any blame or negative consequences.
Panel 2
Blurb: Senator Kerry was unable to make any political hay over the revelation, as he had his own imbroglio over what he did with his medals for heroism 30 years ago.
Kerry: I never said I threw seven medals, I said I threw several ribbons.
Panel 3
Blurb: Bush vigorously defenced his record.
Bush (with Evil Cyborg head): You have to ask one question: Is the world better off without Saddam Hussein? Just ask that one question! Do not ask any other questions!
Panel 4
Blurb: Vice President Cheney, revealed last week to be a Brain-Craving Zombie, faced the press.
Reporter: The Democrats are suggesting that the horrifying and catastrophic events of Bush's term could be related
Cheney (eating a grey brain): They're politicizing the fact that the President is an Evil Cyborg! It's shameful.
Panel 5
Blurb: American voters seem to agree and still favor Bush over Kerry.
Voter: Kerry seems sorta wishy-washy. Imagine how he could mess things up if he were President.
***
This is so bad, it's good
"Growth caused by chickens that have been injected by Steroids
This is a true story! I am very concerned about the health of the people out there especially the women’s!
A friend of mine recently had a growth in her womb and she underwent an operation to remove the cyst. The cyst removed was filled with a dark coloured blood.
She thought that she would be recovered after the surgery but she was terribly wrong. A relapse occurred just a few months later. Distressed, she rushed down to her gynecologist for a consultation. During her consultation, her doctor asked her a question that puzzled her. He ask if she was a frequent consumer of chicken wings and she replied yes wondering as to how, he knew of her eating habits.
You see, the truth is in this modern day and age, chickens are injected with steroids to accelerate their growth so that the needs of this society can be met. This need is none other then the need for food. Chickens that are injected with steroids are usually given the shot at the neck or the wings. Therefore, it is in this places that the highest concentration of steroids exist.
These steroids have terrifying effects on the body as it accelerates growth. It has an even more dangerous effect in the presence of female hormones, this leads to women being more prone to the growth of a cyst in the womb.
Therefore, I advise the people out there to watch their diets and to lower their frequency of consuming chicken wings!
People who receive this email, please forward it to your friends and loved ones. I’m sure no one wants to see him or her suffer!
Take care and god bless!"
Now, anyone with half a brain would be struck by the following:
1) The lymphatic and circulatory system circulate the putative steroids around the chickens' bodies and have a systemic, as opposed to a localised effect. If this were not the case, it would be useless to pump steroids into them, unless you wanted otherwise normal chickens with Gigantic Wings.
2) Why would steroids for chickens necessarily affect humans? And if humans and chickens have similar physiologies such that they'd both be affected by the steroids, why did the story's protagonist suddenly develop huge muscles, or the chickens abdominal cysts?
3) Steroids largely consist of hormones, which get denatured by heat. Unless our dear protagonist was fond of eating the wings raw, most of the hormones would have been deactivated by the time she ate them (not to mention what the peptic acids and enzymes would do to them)
4) Males have female hormones too, though to a lesser degree. How come these steroids don't affect them as well?
5) If even our good doctor (or gynaecologist, if you prefer) knows about this dastardly plot, why hasn't he alerted the authorities? Mmm, conspiracy theory.
Moral of the story: Think before you forward crap.
Post ID: 108505548182653549
Thursday, May 20, 2004
Word of the day: "theodicy"
Today, I was once again flagellated by the terrible wrath of the Lord. As I was smoking in the stairwell outside my office (riding on the theological principle of: "vicarious atonement"), I received a phone call from another prospective interviewer - Credit Suisse First Boston.
Immediately I leapt to my feet and proceeded to a quieter corner to converse. The interviewer this time was a dulcet-voiced lady, who proceeded to ask me the usual range of questions: "why are you leaving", "describe your current job", etc etc. Just as I felt that the interview was getting on fine... the phone cut off.
Now, Malaysian mobile phones don't show caller ID for international calls, so you can imagine my howls of rage and frustration that would have echoed along the corridors, if I hadn't been constrained by the desire not to attract attention from passers-by and colleagues.
After half an hour, with no call returned, I wrote a restrained email to the interviewer (thankfully I had acquired her address earlier) asking if she would be so good as to call me back. As controlled and professional as I tried to word it, I have this sneaking suspicion that a hint of insane hysteria could be discerned between the lines.
A morose hour later, and I'm here typing this blog entry in my office, with no response either on the email or phone front.
Once again, the terrible wrath of the Lord has smote down my dreams. Nonetheless, I am merely beaten, not broken.
"What is a man? He is one who, when the floods have destroyed his harvest, shakes his fist at the heavens - and then returns to plant anew. He is one who remains undismayed by Fortune's fickleness."
And in the immortal stanzas of Rudyard Kipling:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!
Bring it on, God. Having being laid so low these days, any cataclysm that can drive me deeper into the abyss will certainly be an aesthetically pleasing and darkly humourous one.
On a more bleakly amusing note, today I was performing some of my usual patented Enron Lite(tm) techniques for enhancing the Bank's profitability. As I discussed a particularly elegant maneuver my boss and I had worked out, this conversation arose.
Me: "So after we finish setting this up in the system they (business end) can do CERTAIN THING right?"
(CERTAIN THING being an amazingly elaborate accounting/business sleight-of-hand to move certain numbers to the right part of the P&L column)
Boss: "Yup."
Me: "And it means they can like jack up their profits forever right? Or at least until the regulators catch us, by which time we'll all be long gone?"
Boss: "Yup."
Me: "And it means our group profits go up, our share price goes up, our shareholders are happy, our bosses earn more from their options, and the business end gets more massive 12-month bonuses right?"
Boss: "Yup." (my boss isn't as garrulous as I am)
Me: "And we still get the same pitiful pay and kacang bonuses that we always get, even though if we've just helped the bank make shitloads more money right?"
Boss: "Yup. I'm glad to see your chain of reasoning is so good. So when do you think you can finish it up?"
Today, I was once again flagellated by the terrible wrath of the Lord. As I was smoking in the stairwell outside my office (riding on the theological principle of: "vicarious atonement"), I received a phone call from another prospective interviewer - Credit Suisse First Boston.
Immediately I leapt to my feet and proceeded to a quieter corner to converse. The interviewer this time was a dulcet-voiced lady, who proceeded to ask me the usual range of questions: "why are you leaving", "describe your current job", etc etc. Just as I felt that the interview was getting on fine... the phone cut off.
Now, Malaysian mobile phones don't show caller ID for international calls, so you can imagine my howls of rage and frustration that would have echoed along the corridors, if I hadn't been constrained by the desire not to attract attention from passers-by and colleagues.
After half an hour, with no call returned, I wrote a restrained email to the interviewer (thankfully I had acquired her address earlier) asking if she would be so good as to call me back. As controlled and professional as I tried to word it, I have this sneaking suspicion that a hint of insane hysteria could be discerned between the lines.
A morose hour later, and I'm here typing this blog entry in my office, with no response either on the email or phone front.
Once again, the terrible wrath of the Lord has smote down my dreams. Nonetheless, I am merely beaten, not broken.
"What is a man? He is one who, when the floods have destroyed his harvest, shakes his fist at the heavens - and then returns to plant anew. He is one who remains undismayed by Fortune's fickleness."
And in the immortal stanzas of Rudyard Kipling:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!
Bring it on, God. Having being laid so low these days, any cataclysm that can drive me deeper into the abyss will certainly be an aesthetically pleasing and darkly humourous one.
On a more bleakly amusing note, today I was performing some of my usual patented Enron Lite(tm) techniques for enhancing the Bank's profitability. As I discussed a particularly elegant maneuver my boss and I had worked out, this conversation arose.
Me: "So after we finish setting this up in the system they (business end) can do CERTAIN THING right?"
(CERTAIN THING being an amazingly elaborate accounting/business sleight-of-hand to move certain numbers to the right part of the P&L column)
Boss: "Yup."
Me: "And it means they can like jack up their profits forever right? Or at least until the regulators catch us, by which time we'll all be long gone?"
Boss: "Yup."
Me: "And it means our group profits go up, our share price goes up, our shareholders are happy, our bosses earn more from their options, and the business end gets more massive 12-month bonuses right?"
Boss: "Yup." (my boss isn't as garrulous as I am)
Me: "And we still get the same pitiful pay and kacang bonuses that we always get, even though if we've just helped the bank make shitloads more money right?"
Boss: "Yup. I'm glad to see your chain of reasoning is so good. So when do you think you can finish it up?"
Post ID: 108505164540443028
Tuesday, May 18, 2004
Thanks to Screwed Up Girl, who game me the wrong information regarding my meetup, I went to the wrong place and wasted my time.
I should have trusted my memory instead of her amazing ablity to convey the wrong information to others (this is not the first time).
!@#$%^&*()
After using a Natural Sponge, I now know why everyone uses artificial ones. Natural sponges are extremely fragile, and disintegrate during use and split easily. Meanwhile artificial ones feel just as good on the skin.
One of my uniquely perverted hobbies is to skip steps while mounting or dismounting the top decks of SBS SuperBuses with counters indicating the number of seats left on the top deck. As such, one of my exotic fantasies is to crash the counter by alternately mounting the top deck properly and then skipping steps on the way down, repeating this ad infinitum, or vice versa. Unfortunately, like my other uniquely perverted fantasies, it is unlikely to be fulfilled.
I wonder if the banglas who clear the rubbish from the rubbish points of high-rise buildings wear hard hats. If they don't, what happens if, while they are clearing the rubbish, some hard object hurtles down the chute at terminal velocity, and lands on their heads? You'd need a cover-up then!
Playing With Time - Various clips of both time-lapse photography (say, of spring's reviving touch) and slowed down footage (of, for example, an eye blinking)
10 Worst Album Covers of all time - I could die laughing. I listened to Devastatin' Dave: The Turntable Slave's "Zip Zap Rap". It is indeed "quite the experience". If you want more, there's a sequel.
A Study of Swearing in Modern English - Intelligent discourse on anything remotely linked to this subject is most rare.
Showing Our Feathers - Good explanation of why people like to boast of how hard their lives are, and wear the depredations of the Fates like badges of merit
Datadocktor'n - din hjälp bland ettor o nollor - " A hard drive becomes fragmented very, very fast. What happens is that all the tiny ones and zeros gets mixed and confused, and to get back the original speed on Your hard drive it's necessary to Defragment it. There are several of different species of software to make this happen, but the most excellent way to do it is a hardwaredefragmentation. you'll only need some basic data-mechanical-skills to be able to accomplish this operation."
Socio-Political Themes in The Smurfs - "Adding to the idea of complete equality in the Village, most of the Smurfs wear the same kind and colour of clothes. It is a general work uniform, and with the distinctive caps and blue skin, is highly reminiscent of the so-called Mao Suit, common in Maoist China... Smurfette has no breasts... The idea that a woman can be made by a man denies women's key role in procreation. The fact that she does not posess breasts goes further to this denial of nature, an attempt to control women, to make them conform to the societal norm imposed by the patriachal order."
Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists - "Highlighting the heads of science"
Smoking is for stupid people. - "My friend has slept with 3 smokers and 3 non-smokers. She says that smoker's penises are very clearly softer than non-smokers"
Right.
Judges Against The Drug War - "For the past thirty years Judges have looked on as America’s War on Drugs has played itself out before their eyes. They have seen the inevitable increase in police powers and erosion of civil rights needed to facilitate the investigation of drug offenses. They have witnessed the widespread, unprecedented use of asset forfeiture. And they have been forced to impose unjust mandatory minimum sentences. They're finally speaking out."
Finally, a breath of reason
Tragic end of the boy who was brought up as a girl - "David Reimer was hailed by scientists as a triumph of nurture over nature. But as his suicide shows, this was a terrible mistake"
International Teen Vampire Meetup Day - "Meetup with other Vamps, ages 16-19. There are no posers or role players allowed. THIS IS FOR REAL TEEN VAMPIRES."
Why do I have the feeling that I don't want to know what a "Teen Vampire" is?
Archaeology Magazine - Clear and comprehensible. To me, at least.
Quit Slashdot.org Today - Xephyris: "LOL, NEVER!"
"Q: If I don't read Slashdot, who will share interesting links with me, and with whom will I discuss the interesting links I find?
A: If you don't have friends with whom to share links and conversation, you have social problems and you should confront them instead of joining a cultlike pseudo-community. If you have too much free time and can't think of a better way to spend it than reading Slashdot, you need a hobby, a job, or both."
I should have trusted my memory instead of her amazing ablity to convey the wrong information to others (this is not the first time).
!@#$%^&*()
After using a Natural Sponge, I now know why everyone uses artificial ones. Natural sponges are extremely fragile, and disintegrate during use and split easily. Meanwhile artificial ones feel just as good on the skin.
One of my uniquely perverted hobbies is to skip steps while mounting or dismounting the top decks of SBS SuperBuses with counters indicating the number of seats left on the top deck. As such, one of my exotic fantasies is to crash the counter by alternately mounting the top deck properly and then skipping steps on the way down, repeating this ad infinitum, or vice versa. Unfortunately, like my other uniquely perverted fantasies, it is unlikely to be fulfilled.
I wonder if the banglas who clear the rubbish from the rubbish points of high-rise buildings wear hard hats. If they don't, what happens if, while they are clearing the rubbish, some hard object hurtles down the chute at terminal velocity, and lands on their heads? You'd need a cover-up then!
Playing With Time - Various clips of both time-lapse photography (say, of spring's reviving touch) and slowed down footage (of, for example, an eye blinking)
10 Worst Album Covers of all time - I could die laughing. I listened to Devastatin' Dave: The Turntable Slave's "Zip Zap Rap". It is indeed "quite the experience". If you want more, there's a sequel.
A Study of Swearing in Modern English - Intelligent discourse on anything remotely linked to this subject is most rare.
Showing Our Feathers - Good explanation of why people like to boast of how hard their lives are, and wear the depredations of the Fates like badges of merit
Datadocktor'n - din hjälp bland ettor o nollor - " A hard drive becomes fragmented very, very fast. What happens is that all the tiny ones and zeros gets mixed and confused, and to get back the original speed on Your hard drive it's necessary to Defragment it. There are several of different species of software to make this happen, but the most excellent way to do it is a hardwaredefragmentation. you'll only need some basic data-mechanical-skills to be able to accomplish this operation."
Socio-Political Themes in The Smurfs - "Adding to the idea of complete equality in the Village, most of the Smurfs wear the same kind and colour of clothes. It is a general work uniform, and with the distinctive caps and blue skin, is highly reminiscent of the so-called Mao Suit, common in Maoist China... Smurfette has no breasts... The idea that a woman can be made by a man denies women's key role in procreation. The fact that she does not posess breasts goes further to this denial of nature, an attempt to control women, to make them conform to the societal norm imposed by the patriachal order."
Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists - "Highlighting the heads of science"
Smoking is for stupid people. - "My friend has slept with 3 smokers and 3 non-smokers. She says that smoker's penises are very clearly softer than non-smokers"
Right.
Judges Against The Drug War - "For the past thirty years Judges have looked on as America’s War on Drugs has played itself out before their eyes. They have seen the inevitable increase in police powers and erosion of civil rights needed to facilitate the investigation of drug offenses. They have witnessed the widespread, unprecedented use of asset forfeiture. And they have been forced to impose unjust mandatory minimum sentences. They're finally speaking out."
Finally, a breath of reason
Tragic end of the boy who was brought up as a girl - "David Reimer was hailed by scientists as a triumph of nurture over nature. But as his suicide shows, this was a terrible mistake"
International Teen Vampire Meetup Day - "Meetup with other Vamps, ages 16-19. There are no posers or role players allowed. THIS IS FOR REAL TEEN VAMPIRES."
Why do I have the feeling that I don't want to know what a "Teen Vampire" is?
Archaeology Magazine - Clear and comprehensible. To me, at least.
Quit Slashdot.org Today - Xephyris: "LOL, NEVER!"
"Q: If I don't read Slashdot, who will share interesting links with me, and with whom will I discuss the interesting links I find?
A: If you don't have friends with whom to share links and conversation, you have social problems and you should confront them instead of joining a cultlike pseudo-community. If you have too much free time and can't think of a better way to spend it than reading Slashdot, you need a hobby, a job, or both."
Post ID: 108489011369984952
Word of the day (unsurprisingly) - "metastasis"
What did I tell you about tumours, Gabriel. Gah.
Anyway, I rummaged through an old OED in my librarium, and there appear to be two somewhat contradictory principles when dealing with the possessive apostrophe.
a) The euphony principle; if the additional "-es" syllable turns the word ungainly then you should put the apostrophe outside - eg. hangers', cleaners', users', executives' but words ending in a sibilant like "chess" or "James" in which the added syllable doesn't sound so bad (viz. "chess-es", "James-es") should have the 's added. To answer your question, Gabriel - the possessive of Jess would be "Jess-es" in this case.
However, in the wonderful world of English, it seems to me that the euphony principle may lead to weird instances like synopsis's (si-nop-sis-sus) vs synopses' (si-nop-sus).
b) However, the OED also ruefully notes that words with a silent "s", usually of French origin, are often accorded the apostrophe outside (Dumas', corps') due to traditional historical usage, despite the euphony principle. Also already mentioned that classical, literary or Biblical names only use the apostrophe outside due to tradition - Isis' or Dickens' - even though Isis's isn't (THAT) euphonically unpleasing.
In other words it all freaking depends.
The OED concludes by arguing lamely that the best you can hope for is to be internally consistent throughout any single text or your general writing style:) It also suggests (as do many other style or copywriting manuals) that one rephrases the possessive using "of" (the hotels' owner into "the owner of the hotelss") or use the attributive form (the hotels owner).
Below are some fascinating professional online takes on the topic.
How is the possessive formed for a word like "McDonald's"?
Comments: The results include one divided vote: the voter agreed with position 1 for formal writing, but position 2 for informal writing.
POSITION 1 (10 votes): Rewrite.
EXPLANATION: An apparent need for the possessive form of the name of the fast-food chain is conceivable; for example, the executives of the company might want to refer to the company's (note the possessive) employees or products.
The most commonly accepted way to form the possessive singular is to add "'s"; some prefer to add only "'" to singulars that end in a sibilant. Forming the possessive of "McDonald's" in those ways produces "McDonald's's" and "McDonald's'"; neither looks like English, and both would have to be considered nonstandard or unpronounceable.
A sentence that seems to require such a possessive form should be recast to yield the "of" possessive or should use the noun as a modifier. For instance, "The golden arches of McDonald's (meaning the company) are common" or "McDonald's golden arches are common."
POSITION 2 (7 votes): This can only arise colloquially, or in artificially contrived situations. For those cases I favor McDonald's.
EXPLANATION: For a possessive form like McDonald's to need its own possessive, it must have become the nominative form of a different noun.
While I may say "I went to McDonald's for a Whopper," what I mean is I went to the McDonald's fast food store. McDonald's is a trademark, so is thus an adjective, not a noun.
When you reply "McDonald's burger is called a Big Mac," you mean the McDonald's fast food store's burger is called a Big Mac. When you instinctively say and I immediately understand "McDonald's burger," we are temporarily creating a McDonald in our minds to personify the McDonald's fast food store.
POSITION 3 (1 vote): McDonald's'.
EXPLANATION: I would make the possessive McDonald's'. But I'm considered weird. McDonald's' is logical. So what if there are two apostrophes? The basic word, the very name of the business, is McDonald's. If you're talking about something that belongs to McDonald's, such as McDonald's' environmental philosophy, it's McDonald's'. Isn't it?
(Where) should there be an apostrophe in "Veterans" in "Veterans Administration" and similar constructions?
Comments: Opinion was nearly equally divided, with position 1 (no apostrophe) winning by 2 votes.
POSITION 1 (7 votes): No apostrophe in that and many other, but not all cases.
EXPLANATION: The distinction is between a possessive, as in user's guide, and a plural noun acting as an adjective, as in writers union, tinkers guild, and veterans administration.
In the case of a user's guide, the item is clearly possessed by the user; it doesn't describe, explain, or otherwise touch on properties of the user.
The Veterans Administration deals with the concerns of veterans. It does not belong to any particular veteran, the generic veteran, or the class of veterans.
Similarly, the writers union doesn't belong to writers. In fact, the very opposite is true. :-)
I would also say "children's club," but I think this falls into the same category as "user's guide." The focus is on individual children and their venues, like their rooms or their back yards. We look on children and (in a sense) users as immature.
Where the focus is more on the organization than the individual, as in a writers guild, this changes. I would say "Boy Scout troop" or "Boy Scouts troop," not "Boy Scout's troop" or "Boy Scouts' troop."
POSITION 2 (5 votes): Use a possessive form (singular or plural depending on meaning).
EXPLANATION: Such constructions are best understood as genitives, rather than possessives in the narrow sense. Thus a writers' union is a union of writers, not a union possessed by writers--but still gets an apostrophe.
In English, plural nouns are seldom if ever used as adjectives. Thus, we speak of a "shoe (sing.) store", even though the store clearly has more than one shoe for sale.
We can see that constructions like "writers' union" are genitives if we consider cases where the genitive and the simple plural are actually pronounced differently. We would certainly say "children's club" rather than "children club".
The Veterans' Administration itself is a moot point, since its official name has changed. But as an administration pertaining to veterans, the genitive plural is appropriate, and the name would be properly punctuated as "Veterans' Administration".
What did I tell you about tumours, Gabriel. Gah.
Anyway, I rummaged through an old OED in my librarium, and there appear to be two somewhat contradictory principles when dealing with the possessive apostrophe.
a) The euphony principle; if the additional "-es" syllable turns the word ungainly then you should put the apostrophe outside - eg. hangers', cleaners', users', executives' but words ending in a sibilant like "chess" or "James" in which the added syllable doesn't sound so bad (viz. "chess-es", "James-es") should have the 's added. To answer your question, Gabriel - the possessive of Jess would be "Jess-es" in this case.
However, in the wonderful world of English, it seems to me that the euphony principle may lead to weird instances like synopsis's (si-nop-sis-sus) vs synopses' (si-nop-sus).
b) However, the OED also ruefully notes that words with a silent "s", usually of French origin, are often accorded the apostrophe outside (Dumas', corps') due to traditional historical usage, despite the euphony principle. Also already mentioned that classical, literary or Biblical names only use the apostrophe outside due to tradition - Isis' or Dickens' - even though Isis's isn't (THAT) euphonically unpleasing.
In other words it all freaking depends.
The OED concludes by arguing lamely that the best you can hope for is to be internally consistent throughout any single text or your general writing style:) It also suggests (as do many other style or copywriting manuals) that one rephrases the possessive using "of" (the hotels' owner into "the owner of the hotelss") or use the attributive form (the hotels owner).
Below are some fascinating professional online takes on the topic.
How is the possessive formed for a word like "McDonald's"?
Comments: The results include one divided vote: the voter agreed with position 1 for formal writing, but position 2 for informal writing.
POSITION 1 (10 votes): Rewrite.
EXPLANATION: An apparent need for the possessive form of the name of the fast-food chain is conceivable; for example, the executives of the company might want to refer to the company's (note the possessive) employees or products.
The most commonly accepted way to form the possessive singular is to add "'s"; some prefer to add only "'" to singulars that end in a sibilant. Forming the possessive of "McDonald's" in those ways produces "McDonald's's" and "McDonald's'"; neither looks like English, and both would have to be considered nonstandard or unpronounceable.
A sentence that seems to require such a possessive form should be recast to yield the "of" possessive or should use the noun as a modifier. For instance, "The golden arches of McDonald's (meaning the company) are common" or "McDonald's golden arches are common."
POSITION 2 (7 votes): This can only arise colloquially, or in artificially contrived situations. For those cases I favor McDonald's.
EXPLANATION: For a possessive form like McDonald's to need its own possessive, it must have become the nominative form of a different noun.
While I may say "I went to McDonald's for a Whopper," what I mean is I went to the McDonald's fast food store. McDonald's is a trademark, so is thus an adjective, not a noun.
When you reply "McDonald's burger is called a Big Mac," you mean the McDonald's fast food store's burger is called a Big Mac. When you instinctively say and I immediately understand "McDonald's burger," we are temporarily creating a McDonald in our minds to personify the McDonald's fast food store.
POSITION 3 (1 vote): McDonald's'.
EXPLANATION: I would make the possessive McDonald's'. But I'm considered weird. McDonald's' is logical. So what if there are two apostrophes? The basic word, the very name of the business, is McDonald's. If you're talking about something that belongs to McDonald's, such as McDonald's' environmental philosophy, it's McDonald's'. Isn't it?
(Where) should there be an apostrophe in "Veterans" in "Veterans Administration" and similar constructions?
Comments: Opinion was nearly equally divided, with position 1 (no apostrophe) winning by 2 votes.
POSITION 1 (7 votes): No apostrophe in that and many other, but not all cases.
EXPLANATION: The distinction is between a possessive, as in user's guide, and a plural noun acting as an adjective, as in writers union, tinkers guild, and veterans administration.
In the case of a user's guide, the item is clearly possessed by the user; it doesn't describe, explain, or otherwise touch on properties of the user.
The Veterans Administration deals with the concerns of veterans. It does not belong to any particular veteran, the generic veteran, or the class of veterans.
Similarly, the writers union doesn't belong to writers. In fact, the very opposite is true. :-)
I would also say "children's club," but I think this falls into the same category as "user's guide." The focus is on individual children and their venues, like their rooms or their back yards. We look on children and (in a sense) users as immature.
Where the focus is more on the organization than the individual, as in a writers guild, this changes. I would say "Boy Scout troop" or "Boy Scouts troop," not "Boy Scout's troop" or "Boy Scouts' troop."
POSITION 2 (5 votes): Use a possessive form (singular or plural depending on meaning).
EXPLANATION: Such constructions are best understood as genitives, rather than possessives in the narrow sense. Thus a writers' union is a union of writers, not a union possessed by writers--but still gets an apostrophe.
In English, plural nouns are seldom if ever used as adjectives. Thus, we speak of a "shoe (sing.) store", even though the store clearly has more than one shoe for sale.
We can see that constructions like "writers' union" are genitives if we consider cases where the genitive and the simple plural are actually pronounced differently. We would certainly say "children's club" rather than "children club".
The Veterans' Administration itself is a moot point, since its official name has changed. But as an administration pertaining to veterans, the genitive plural is appropriate, and the name would be properly punctuated as "Veterans' Administration".
Post ID: 108485460143529880
"The question of how to form the possessive of names of more than one syllable ending in the sound of s or z probably occaisions more dissension among writers and editors of good will than any other orthographic matter open to disagreement."
[Gabriel's tumour: Why more than one syllable? How about Jess'/Jess's case?]
[Gabriel's tumour: Why more than one syllable? How about Jess'/Jess's case?]
Post ID: 108483979129124364
I've been sleeping too much recently. Then again, it beats stoning.
On one of the most perplexing uses of the apostrophe:
'Take the possessive of proper names ending in "s" - such as my own... Current guides to punctuation (including that ultimate authority, Fowler's Modern English Usage) state that with modern names ending in "s" (including biblical names, and any foreign name with an unpronounced final "s"), the "s" is required after the apostrophe:
Keats's poems
Philippa Jones's book
St James's Square
Alexander Dumas's The Three Musketeers
With names from the ancient world, it is not:
Archimedes' screw
Achilles' heel
If the name ends in an "iz" sound, an exception is made:
Bridges' score
Moses' tablets
And an exception is always made for Jesus:
Jesus' disciples
However, these are matters of style and preference that are definitely not set in stone, and it's a good idea not to get fixated about them... Consulting a dozen or so recently published punctuation guides, I can report that they contain minor disagreements on virtually all aspects of the above and that their only genuine consistency is in using Keats's poems as the prime example. Strange, but true. They just can't leave Keats alone. "It is Keats' poems (NOT Keats's)," they thunder. Or alternatively: "It is Keats's poems (NOT Keats')." Well, poor old Keats, you can't help thinking. No wonder he developed that cough.'
--- Lynne Truss, Eats, Shoots & Leaves - The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, pp 55-57
Now you know why both Tym and I am in accord in recommending it :)
Two Americans are at a corner when a Swiss guy drives up.
The Swiss guy asks 'Sprechen sie Deutsch?'.
The two guys just stare.
'Parlez vous Francais?'
The two guys look at each other.
'Parla italiano?'
The two guys just shake their heads and the Swiss drives off in disgust.
One guy says to the other 'Hey, do you think that maybe we ought to learn another language?'
The other says 'Why bother? That guy could speak four and look what it got him!'
Someone recently told me, "It isn't immediately apparent to me why you hate the army so much... if you could distil the hatred into a couple of sentences that would be good".
I seem to have settled recently into sadness tinged with regret. As my ORD approaches, I wonder,
"How do you pick up the threads of an old life?
How do you go on, when in your heart, you begin to understand, there is no going back?
There are some things that time cannot mend.
Some hurts that go too deep... that have taken hold"
If you want hatred, well, try being in an organisation which doesn't afford you Respect, Care and Dignity (that being the motto of the SAF Counselling Centre, the corollary being that those 3 are not available elsewhere) and which takes you for granted as sub-human slave labour, beholden to the whims and fancies of the slave masters.
My rage has morphed recently into something hovering between pity and contempt, for the pitiful creatures of darkness who know not how they bind themselves with the chains of their iniquity. Of course, it is hard to feel pity when you are sprawled on the tarmac, gnashing your teeth and wailing, having collapsed after a route march, but since I'm pretty much free now, I have the luxury of feeling such emotions.
On one of the most perplexing uses of the apostrophe:
'Take the possessive of proper names ending in "s" - such as my own... Current guides to punctuation (including that ultimate authority, Fowler's Modern English Usage) state that with modern names ending in "s" (including biblical names, and any foreign name with an unpronounced final "s"), the "s" is required after the apostrophe:
Keats's poems
Philippa Jones's book
St James's Square
Alexander Dumas's The Three Musketeers
With names from the ancient world, it is not:
Archimedes' screw
Achilles' heel
If the name ends in an "iz" sound, an exception is made:
Bridges' score
Moses' tablets
And an exception is always made for Jesus:
Jesus' disciples
However, these are matters of style and preference that are definitely not set in stone, and it's a good idea not to get fixated about them... Consulting a dozen or so recently published punctuation guides, I can report that they contain minor disagreements on virtually all aspects of the above and that their only genuine consistency is in using Keats's poems as the prime example. Strange, but true. They just can't leave Keats alone. "It is Keats' poems (NOT Keats's)," they thunder. Or alternatively: "It is Keats's poems (NOT Keats')." Well, poor old Keats, you can't help thinking. No wonder he developed that cough.'
--- Lynne Truss, Eats, Shoots & Leaves - The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, pp 55-57
Now you know why both Tym and I am in accord in recommending it :)
Two Americans are at a corner when a Swiss guy drives up.
The Swiss guy asks 'Sprechen sie Deutsch?'.
The two guys just stare.
'Parlez vous Francais?'
The two guys look at each other.
'Parla italiano?'
The two guys just shake their heads and the Swiss drives off in disgust.
One guy says to the other 'Hey, do you think that maybe we ought to learn another language?'
The other says 'Why bother? That guy could speak four and look what it got him!'
Someone recently told me, "It isn't immediately apparent to me why you hate the army so much... if you could distil the hatred into a couple of sentences that would be good".
I seem to have settled recently into sadness tinged with regret. As my ORD approaches, I wonder,
"How do you pick up the threads of an old life?
How do you go on, when in your heart, you begin to understand, there is no going back?
There are some things that time cannot mend.
Some hurts that go too deep... that have taken hold"
If you want hatred, well, try being in an organisation which doesn't afford you Respect, Care and Dignity (that being the motto of the SAF Counselling Centre, the corollary being that those 3 are not available elsewhere) and which takes you for granted as sub-human slave labour, beholden to the whims and fancies of the slave masters.
My rage has morphed recently into something hovering between pity and contempt, for the pitiful creatures of darkness who know not how they bind themselves with the chains of their iniquity. Of course, it is hard to feel pity when you are sprawled on the tarmac, gnashing your teeth and wailing, having collapsed after a route march, but since I'm pretty much free now, I have the luxury of feeling such emotions.
Post ID: 108481303370017869
The long-awaited renovation of the medical centre has begun, wasting $120,000 to upgrade a place that will be rebuilt in a few years. The works are doing weird things to, for example, the water supply. I was in Room 4 (now Observation Room 2) and turned on the tap, only to shriek in alarm when brown water started flowing from it. Meanwhile in the sickbay, the false ceiling boards have been removed. I took a walk there and could neither see, hear nor smell the presence of the rats. Having nowhere to hide, they have finally been eradicated!
As an offering to appease the masses, I bought some Greek sweets to give to my camp mates - 2 boxes, in fact. The first was "Loukoumi Vassaki Greek Delights", overly-large red gelatinous cubes covered with a sticky cream-coloured liquid (probably liquefied icing sugar), and remarkably similar to one of the Indian confections. The cubes were rose-flavoured, but were insanely sweet. Now, I have a sweet tooth, but the cloying sweetness of the Loukoumi was enough to send me scurrying for copious amounts of water. I wonder how the Greeks manage not to get diabetes.
Later, I opened the other packet - "'Vassaki' Akanes Lailia from Serres". Inside were smaller brown gelatinous cubes, with peanut fragments embedded in them, and the icing sugar had not liquefied yet. It wasn't as sweet at the first, but it was still too sweet for my tastes.
It seems that there hasn't been a company run since the return from Lancer, more than 2 weeks ago, due to various administrative cockups. Nonetheless, our motivated medics have taken it into their hands to run by themselves. How laudable, their masochism is.
ORD personnel normally disappear to the canteen for most of the day, and eat canteen food instead of cookhouse food. Unfortunately, I think that I am still banned from there. Normally, no one cares about people who are going to ORD, but I daresay that for a personage as esteemed in their eyes as I, they will make an exception.
24 out of about 120 recruits in Pussy company want to sign on as regulars. I don't know what's wrong with them. I mean, some people in the other companies were similarly conned, but not so many!
Less than 2 weeks after taking over from me, my understudy got an understudy of his own. Hehe.
I don't know why, but though the training in 46SAR is often more intense, and they seem to have fewer privileges and more restrictions, people in 42 hate their unit more than those in 46. I was discussing this with some 46 guy - perhaps the commanders in 46 are nicer. They train you hard, but you don't get screwed, and you don't get the feeling that you are a slave in chains, placed on a treadmill in a workhouse.
I was being given a lecture by a taxi driver on the art of choosing the spots to go to pick passengers up. Most of it was inane drivel, but I learnt that it costs $92.40 a day to rent a cab.
During my last night off, I went with some of the guys to Jurong Point. There, we saw 3 female Officer Cadets (No, I'm not going to comment on their appearances) in NTUC. Inside their plastic bags, I saw some boxes of Yam Yam (the snack with biscuit sticks you dip in chocolate/vanilla), and they were picking at punnets of strawberries. Tut tut.
Orange Julius now has a Pina Colada drink with Nata De Coco. Shameless! I wonder which Malaysian scientist came up with the idea of Nata De Coco anyway. All the coconut husks that go in... Erk.
It is most ironic that Conservatives (or the right wing, rather) is generally permissive economically but restrictive socially, while the Liberals (or the left wing) is the opposite.
In Brunei, I saw a music video of this Chinese Pop song - "Shou3 Qian1 Shou3" (I always remember the middle word as "Jie1" or "Wo4"), whose list of performers read like a "Who's who of Chinese Pop" list.
From the tune, mood and lyrics of the song, I concluded that it was commissioned either in memory of some celebrity's passing or for a governmental campaign (ala the Courage Song).
But then, there were no scenes from the life of any one, nor pictures of nurses/road sweepers/night soil collectors/other unsung heroes that Virtuous and Moral Chinese are so fond of honouring (but not paying decent wages) doing their stuff, only black-and-white clips of people like A*Mei and S.H.E (H.E.R) singing their hearts out into mics with their hands clapsed around their headphones and of a lacklustre choir singing the chorus line.
So maybe it was a self-congratulatory pat on the back by the Chinese Pop industry, though seeing as how half of their songs these days are half in English, I wonder what they have to celebrate. (A source tells me it was for SARS, but I didn't see any nurses. Or intubated people. Or chest X-rays with auras)
Proton
"There is a reason why even patriotic Malaysians are paying 110,000 ringgit for a 1.6-litre Toyota or Honda when a similar-sized Proton costs less than 60,000 ringgit. The Wira, Proton's family saloon, is over a decade old and beset with faults. JD Powers, a consultancy, says that Proton has the worst quality record in the country... the Gen.2's roof turns out to be too low for adults in the rear to sit comfortably. Proton has always violated every principle of economics and car making."
Malaysia boleh!
Estée Lauder
"Young Josephine Esther Mentzer, as she began, was convinced from childhood that women should be beautiful. She also hoped to make a fortune by persuading them that, if they bought her creams, their beauty would last for ever. It is a story, after all, that women tend to need to believe... Whether women actually became more beautiful by applying Body Performance Anti-Cellulite Visible Contouring Serum, or whether they would have done as well with a quick douse in cold water, is impossible to say. Clearly, many felt better for it. The very names of these products, energetic and pseudo-scientific, implied that the limits of knowledge had been searched. Mrs Lauder could have cut prices, but refused. Her Crème de la Mer, developed by a NASA scientist, cost $110 for an ounce of vitamins pulped with seaweed. But cheapness, she said, would shake her customers' faith."
Gender defects are so tragic.
I wonder what people would write for *my* obituary.
Quotes:
[Me on the debilitating effects of NS: Don't you feel disconnected from the world?] I'm not disconnected from the world. I'm on the internet.
[On someone] He didn't disappear very often. He only disappeared often after his car broken down.
[To someone] Yo! You're back from [your] course. [Someone: I'm back] [Me: I'm back too] [Someone else: No one cares about you]
[Sign] Do not disturb us during lunchtime of after working hours!!!! Do not knock/open the doors during these hours! Unlike you, we need rest! Thank you!
[Sign] Negligence and carelessness on your part does not constitute urgency on my part (oblige)
[On my ORD mood] You look so happy nowadays... so unlike your previous self
[To Swee Shoon] You are the new docu [ic]? You got the shittiest job, next to PA. Both [are] about the same.
As an offering to appease the masses, I bought some Greek sweets to give to my camp mates - 2 boxes, in fact. The first was "Loukoumi Vassaki Greek Delights", overly-large red gelatinous cubes covered with a sticky cream-coloured liquid (probably liquefied icing sugar), and remarkably similar to one of the Indian confections. The cubes were rose-flavoured, but were insanely sweet. Now, I have a sweet tooth, but the cloying sweetness of the Loukoumi was enough to send me scurrying for copious amounts of water. I wonder how the Greeks manage not to get diabetes.
Later, I opened the other packet - "'Vassaki' Akanes Lailia from Serres". Inside were smaller brown gelatinous cubes, with peanut fragments embedded in them, and the icing sugar had not liquefied yet. It wasn't as sweet at the first, but it was still too sweet for my tastes.
It seems that there hasn't been a company run since the return from Lancer, more than 2 weeks ago, due to various administrative cockups. Nonetheless, our motivated medics have taken it into their hands to run by themselves. How laudable, their masochism is.
ORD personnel normally disappear to the canteen for most of the day, and eat canteen food instead of cookhouse food. Unfortunately, I think that I am still banned from there. Normally, no one cares about people who are going to ORD, but I daresay that for a personage as esteemed in their eyes as I, they will make an exception.
24 out of about 120 recruits in Pussy company want to sign on as regulars. I don't know what's wrong with them. I mean, some people in the other companies were similarly conned, but not so many!
Less than 2 weeks after taking over from me, my understudy got an understudy of his own. Hehe.
I don't know why, but though the training in 46SAR is often more intense, and they seem to have fewer privileges and more restrictions, people in 42 hate their unit more than those in 46. I was discussing this with some 46 guy - perhaps the commanders in 46 are nicer. They train you hard, but you don't get screwed, and you don't get the feeling that you are a slave in chains, placed on a treadmill in a workhouse.
I was being given a lecture by a taxi driver on the art of choosing the spots to go to pick passengers up. Most of it was inane drivel, but I learnt that it costs $92.40 a day to rent a cab.
During my last night off, I went with some of the guys to Jurong Point. There, we saw 3 female Officer Cadets (No, I'm not going to comment on their appearances) in NTUC. Inside their plastic bags, I saw some boxes of Yam Yam (the snack with biscuit sticks you dip in chocolate/vanilla), and they were picking at punnets of strawberries. Tut tut.
Orange Julius now has a Pina Colada drink with Nata De Coco. Shameless! I wonder which Malaysian scientist came up with the idea of Nata De Coco anyway. All the coconut husks that go in... Erk.
It is most ironic that Conservatives (or the right wing, rather) is generally permissive economically but restrictive socially, while the Liberals (or the left wing) is the opposite.
In Brunei, I saw a music video of this Chinese Pop song - "Shou3 Qian1 Shou3" (I always remember the middle word as "Jie1" or "Wo4"), whose list of performers read like a "Who's who of Chinese Pop" list.
From the tune, mood and lyrics of the song, I concluded that it was commissioned either in memory of some celebrity's passing or for a governmental campaign (ala the Courage Song).
But then, there were no scenes from the life of any one, nor pictures of nurses/road sweepers/night soil collectors/other unsung heroes that Virtuous and Moral Chinese are so fond of honouring (but not paying decent wages) doing their stuff, only black-and-white clips of people like A*Mei and S.H.E (H.E.R) singing their hearts out into mics with their hands clapsed around their headphones and of a lacklustre choir singing the chorus line.
So maybe it was a self-congratulatory pat on the back by the Chinese Pop industry, though seeing as how half of their songs these days are half in English, I wonder what they have to celebrate. (A source tells me it was for SARS, but I didn't see any nurses. Or intubated people. Or chest X-rays with auras)
Proton
"There is a reason why even patriotic Malaysians are paying 110,000 ringgit for a 1.6-litre Toyota or Honda when a similar-sized Proton costs less than 60,000 ringgit. The Wira, Proton's family saloon, is over a decade old and beset with faults. JD Powers, a consultancy, says that Proton has the worst quality record in the country... the Gen.2's roof turns out to be too low for adults in the rear to sit comfortably. Proton has always violated every principle of economics and car making."
Malaysia boleh!
Estée Lauder
"Young Josephine Esther Mentzer, as she began, was convinced from childhood that women should be beautiful. She also hoped to make a fortune by persuading them that, if they bought her creams, their beauty would last for ever. It is a story, after all, that women tend to need to believe... Whether women actually became more beautiful by applying Body Performance Anti-Cellulite Visible Contouring Serum, or whether they would have done as well with a quick douse in cold water, is impossible to say. Clearly, many felt better for it. The very names of these products, energetic and pseudo-scientific, implied that the limits of knowledge had been searched. Mrs Lauder could have cut prices, but refused. Her Crème de la Mer, developed by a NASA scientist, cost $110 for an ounce of vitamins pulped with seaweed. But cheapness, she said, would shake her customers' faith."
Gender defects are so tragic.
I wonder what people would write for *my* obituary.
Quotes:
[Me on the debilitating effects of NS: Don't you feel disconnected from the world?] I'm not disconnected from the world. I'm on the internet.
[On someone] He didn't disappear very often. He only disappeared often after his car broken down.
[To someone] Yo! You're back from [your] course. [Someone: I'm back] [Me: I'm back too] [Someone else: No one cares about you]
[Sign] Do not disturb us during lunchtime of after working hours!!!! Do not knock/open the doors during these hours! Unlike you, we need rest! Thank you!
[Sign] Negligence and carelessness on your part does not constitute urgency on my part (oblige)
[On my ORD mood] You look so happy nowadays... so unlike your previous self
[To Swee Shoon] You are the new docu [ic]? You got the shittiest job, next to PA. Both [are] about the same.
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