Rather lazy and bored, so a few memes can fill in the time on a lazy Sunday afternoon –
create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.
create your own visited countries map
or check out these Google Hacks.
Archive for October, 2004
Ganked from versailles_rose
Posted in Uncategorized on October 31, 2004| 12 Comments »
Ganked from <lj user = “versailles_rose”>
Posted in Uncategorized on October 31, 2004| 6 Comments »
Rather lazy and bored, so a few memes can fill in the time on a lazy Sunday afternoon –
create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.
create your own visited countries map
or check out these Google Hacks.
Lemming Alert – Copied from rue_royale as usual
Posted in Uncategorized on October 29, 2004| 16 Comments »
Dark magician. You love the dark because of it’s
beauty and just the life that no-one else sees.
Mysterious, calm, quiet… But that doesn’t
mean you’re not friendly!
Please rate ^^
What kind of dark person are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
Lemming Alert – Copied from <lj user =”rue_royale”> as usual
Posted in Uncategorized on October 29, 2004| 8 Comments »
Dark magician. You love the dark because of it’s
beauty and just the life that no-one else sees.
Mysterious, calm, quiet… But that doesn’t
mean you’re not friendly!
Please rate ^^
What kind of dark person are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
Protected: London in the 17th Century
Posted in Uncategorized on October 29, 2004|
London in the 17th Century
Posted in Uncategorized on October 29, 2004| Leave a Comment »
Some more interesting bits from A Pirate of Exquisite Mind It seems that coffee houses in the 1690’s were certainly interesting places and stirred some interesting reactions –
“Dampier’s obscure background was less of a hindrance to his progress than he might be imagined. Seventeenth-century society was relatively fluid, and the era was one of intellectual and political ferment where ideas could transcend status. London’s lively coffeehouses, where Dampier probably pursued his contacts, exemplified this. England’s first coffeehouse had been opened by a Jewish immigrant in Oxford in 1650. The first in London had followed two years later and proved so popular that by 1700 there were more than 2,000 in the city. They were convivial, democratic establishments where men of all pursuits and backgrounds rubbed shoulders. Entrance cost a mere penny, and a man could spend much of the day drinking a dish of coffee costing about one and a half pence and debating the state of the world with other drinkers. (If a man was in a hurry he made sure that the server saw him drop some coins into a box marked “T.I.P” short for ‘To Insure Promptness’ and reputedly the origin of the word tip.)
Some men were spending so much time in the coffeehouses that their wives got up a petition against this ‘nasty, bitter, stinking, nauseous puddlewater’ whuch kept their men from home. Even worse,they claimed, ‘never did men wear greater breeches, or carry less in them of any metal whatsoever … (the) heathenish liquor has so eunuched our husbands … that they are become as impotent as age’, returning hime with ‘nothing moist but their snotty noses, nothing stiff but their joints, nothing standing but their ears’.”
They were rather forthright these women and didn’t hold back *g*
“A male response half conceded the case by suggesting that coffee helped men avoid being only a ‘flash in the pan, without doing the thunderous execution which your expectations exact’, but went on, ‘you may as well permit us to talk abroad, for at home we scarce time to utter a word for the unsufferable din of your over-active tongues’.”
And Jack and Stephen love their coffee so. Did they believe it prevented any premature thunderous executions as gentlemen of the 17th Century believed. *g*
There were some interesting pieces on the London publishing industry at the time –
“Dampier had chosen a good time to publish. The period from the Restoration of Charles II in 1660 to the end of the seventeenth century saw a publishing explosion, stimulated by the culture of curiosity and a greater freedom of thought and expression. This was the dawn of the Age of Enlightenment. People were becoming outward- and forward-looking, rather than turning inward and backward to supposed ‘goledn ages’. Reflecting the fluidity of society, authors were valued for what they wrote and what they knew, not for their position in society. For example, Britain’s first female professional playwright, Aphra Behn, began to write plays such as The Rover to support herself….”
“Such romances were, however, only one among many new publication, some of which were aimed at special-interest groups. The published account of the Royal Society’s work, the Philosophical Transactions became the world’s first scientific journal…… The first report of crop circles merited a pamphlet of its own. The Mowing Devil,or Strange News Out of Hertfordshire. The phenomenon was attributed to ‘some infernal spirit (since)no mortal man was able to do the like’. Britain’s first general magazine the monthly Gentleman’s Journal of 1692 …. The first guidebook to London appeared in 1693, complete with a five day programme of suggested sight-seeing. At about the same time, book lovers welcomed their first periodical, the Works of the Learned, dedicated to reviewing books ‘newly-printed, both foreigh and domestic.’
Newspapers, too, proliferated. In March 1691, at the sign of the Black Raven in a street in London known as Poultry, John Dunton produced the Athenian Gazette, (later known as the Athenian Mercury) to answer ‘all the most nice and curious questions proposed by the ingenious of either sex’. Questions included what became of the water after the Flood and whether mermen existed. As a spin-off, Dunton produced the first women’s magazine – the Ladies’ Mercury, – which consisted solely of ‘problem pages’, explicitly answering women’s questions about relationships ranging from adultery to man management.”
Oh dear the 17th Century version of New Idea or Woman’s Day. Note that it mostly consisted of problems. Is that all women had?
Protected: Pissed as A Parrot
Posted in Uncategorized on October 29, 2004|
Pissed as A Parrot
Posted in Uncategorized on October 29, 2004| 4 Comments »
Warnings have been issued to look out for paralytic parrots roaming the Botanical Gardens this very warm Spring –
Party in the botanic gardens
By Richard Macey
October 29, 2004
How sweet it is … a rainbow lorikeet, not yet legless, sups deeply and contentedly at the nectar of the red blossoms on a flowering Schotia brachypetala in Sydney’s Royal Botanic Gardens.
Photo: Nick Moir
Visitors to the Royal Botanic Gardens may need to keep an eye out over the next few weeks for paralytic parrots.
The city’s rainbow lorikeets have began flocking to the gardens to indulge in the nectar of Schotia brachypetala, a tree that is now flowering.
“It produces a lot of sweet nectar, a nectar that is a sugary juice. If it ferments in the heat of the sun it can produce alcohol,” the gardens’ curator, Ian Innes, said yesterday.
Birds over-indulging on the tree appeared to become tipsy, he said. Parrots tucking into the nectar yesterday ignored a Herald photographer, who was able to approach within a few centimetres. They interrupted their partying only for an occasional vigorous shake of their heads.
Larry Vogelnest, senior veterinarian at Taronga Zoo, said lorikeets in northern Australia were known to become intoxicated on fermenting fruit. “Basically they behave like drunk people, staggering around and unco-ordinated.”
But Dr Vogelnest said the reported behaviour yesterday of the birds in the gardens made him wonder if there was “something else in the nectar, some chemical agent, rather than ethanol … that is making them high”.
“The lorikeets get right into it,” said Mr Innes. The tree’s spectacular red flowers had been opening this week, to the delight of the birds. “It gradually opens, a few flowers each day. It will be at its best this week and next week.”
He said the tree, a member of the pea family, was not widely grown in Australia. “It is only grown in a few botanic gardens and in some very old colonial gardens.”
While the specimen in the gardens was just seven or eight metres tall and only 25 years old, bigger ones dripped with nectar. “Camden Park [the old Macarthur estate near Camden] has a very old one,” he said. “It is easily double the size of ours.”
Although most of the tired and emotional customers patronising the gardens’ tree this week have been parrots, Mr Innes expected cockatoos would soon learn about the venue before it inevitably closes for business again in a few weeks. “I am sure they will have a go at it.”
Protected: Dubya Gives God a Good Talking To
Posted in Uncategorized on October 25, 2004|
Dubya Gives God a Good Talking To
Posted in Uncategorized on October 25, 2004| 2 Comments »
Saw this in the paper this morning and had to laugh. More from one of the Pythons, Terry Jones. Instead of the link copied the whole article, the Fairfax papers have acquired the pesky habit of having people sign in to access their stories.
Hello God, it’s George here
October 25, 2004
The leader of the free world has some firm words with the Almighty. By Terry Jones.
“George?”
“Yes?”
“This is God here . . .”
“Hi, God. What can I do for you?”
“I want you to stop this Iraq thing, George.”
“But you told me to do it, God!”
“No, I didn’t, George . . .”
“But you did! You spoke to me through Karl, Rumsey and Dick and all those other really clever guys!”
“How did you know it was me talking, George?”
“Instinct, God. I just knew it!”
“Do you really think I’d want you to unleash all this horror and bloodshed on another lot of human beings?”
“But they’re Muslims! They don’t believe in You, God!”
“But, George, they do believe in me. Jews, Christians and Moslems all worship the same Me! Didn’t you do comparative theology at school, George?”
“No, of course not! You think I’m some sort of peace-waving dope-headed liberal faggot-lover, God?”
“No, of course not, George, but I expect you to know something about the people you’re bombing.”
“Oh, come on! I know it’s right to bomb those oily rag-heads until there’s not one left to wipe a wrench on!”
“How do you know that, George?”
“Cause You tell me that’s what I should do, God.”
“George, I do not tell you to do that!”
“But I hear You, God! You speak to me! You tell me what to do! You tell me what is Right and what is Wrong! That’s why I don’t need to listen to any soft-baked, mealy-mouthed liberal Kerry-pickers!”
“George, you’re deluding yourself.”
“God! How can you say that? I got some of the most powerful people on this planet down on their knees every day in the White House just a-praying to You! Now are you gonna tell me You ain’t listening? Because if You ain’t listening, God, that’s Your problem – not mine!”
“George, of course I’m listening – it’s you who is not listening to Me!”
“And I’ll tell you why! ‘Cause You ain’t addressing me right.”
“What d’you mean, you jumped-up little Ivy League draft-dodger?”
“If you’re so ‘omniscient’, God, you oughta know that you gotta go through Karl Rove, John Ashcroft, Rumsey and Dick . . . those fellas know what they’re talking about! I can’t listen to just any deity who can pick up the phone!”
“But, I’m God, George!”
“Does Karl say you are?”
“But why do you believe Karl?”
“Because my gut tells me he’s right!”
“Listen, you ignorant little pinch-eyed Billy Graham convert! Can’t you get it into your head that I’m God and I’m telling you to stop all this ‘pre-emptive strike’ nonsense! Stop destroying Iraq! Stop supporting that monster Sharon! Stop picking a fight with the only other human beings on the planet that believe in Me! You’re leading the world into unbelievable chaos and horror!”
“That’s enough, God! That’s just the sort of defeatist crap that I won’t allow in the White House! Get out of here!”
“I cannot believe I’m hearing this, George.”
“Well you better start believing, God, because this is the new reality. Don’tcha know that a recent Gallup poll shows that 42 per cent of Americans identify themselves as ‘born again’? That cuts across Republicans and Democrats, rich and poor, white and black! This is a real political power base, God, and you’d better believe it!”
“Look, all I’m asking is for you to show a little compassion to your fellow human beings!”
“I’m not going to debate this with you, God! You’re beginning to sound like you belong to the reality-based community!”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Well by the ‘reality-based community’, we mean people who believe that solutions emerge from their judicious study of discernible reality.”
“Sounds fair enough . . .”
“But, as one of my advisers told The Wall Street Journal: ‘The reality-based community is not the way the world really works any more. We’re an empire now and, when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality – judiciously, as you will – we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study, too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do’.”
“You mean . . . you don’t give a damn, George?”
“I mean You speak through me, God, not the other way round! Is that clear?”
“Yes, Mr President.”
Terry Jones (www.terry-jones.net) is a writer, film director, actor and Python. This article first appeared in The Guardian, London.
Ozfille's Blog 