Black Dog Blog

Archive for August, 2006

This is quite a cool short story, though not the sort of thing I normally read. (I'm never interested in the emoshunal side of things, but I like a good plot event.)

I'm feeling better today than I was in the friendslocked entry last night. Normal, really. The dog goes marching on. The water-drinking isn't so bad either.

Although I could have done without clashing with my mother this morning. Read the rest of this entry »

First of all, I'm gently massaging our venerable Heathenry articles into shape, which means that guess which song is in my head? Manowar's Swords In The Wind, which is an overdramatic, kitsch and overall surprisingly cutesywootsey powah metull ballad… about warriors. Avec the usual (slightly dodgy, iirc?) theology related to Valhalla.

All hail the shapeshifting son of Laufey, anyway. Now for some cool links, so I can finally close the Notepad window I've been keeping open to collect them.

Interesting symbology site -

Christian symbols: animals

Who knew woodpeckers were Satanic?

And a link from my mum, who says "Imagine the slumber parties". http://www.armorofgodpjs.com/

Little-known fact about our original sin article – while coding it for the web back in May '05, I had to take gentle but firm exception with the author about one particular section which peddled some nonsense about evolution. It contrasted the story of the Fall from perfection with evolution as a movement towards perfection. This is bunk.

Here's the text I successfully petitioned to use as a replacement.

[The doctrine of original sin is based on the idea that God created a perfect world, and that humanity damaged it and themselves by disobeying him.] Evolution, on the other hand, suggests that life in the world is steadily changing and becoming more diverse. Scientists do not tend to think of this as a moral good or evil, but in a sense evolution sees life on earth as moving closer to 'perfection' – becoming better adapted to its environment.

He wanted some reference to perfection left in because that was the point of the argument. This is bunk too, because there is no right or wrong evolutionary answer to any facet of one's environment. What breeds works. But I know that, you know that, and at least I trimmed the bad science.

Mind you, Woody Woodpecker's laugh is… 'boring' in its secondary sense.

It's official – being niffled helps people get off drugs and alcohol.

Boredom + microphone + gaming = stupidity (mp3, 5sec), just as sure as snakes + pl—— er, sorry Charmeleon, forget I spoke. ;) Anyway, the game keeps bloody crashing, which is why I was bored. Blame SofDec or Activision or Raven or whoever the other company is.

In case you, for some reason, want to know… this all stems from one time my unbrother was talking to someone on MSN and I insisted he say "I am grooming you… for sex!" Thence the irregular tradition of saying "…for sex!" after other people's sentences. I decided this sounds particularly funny when the person is Ian McKellen (or a cheaper actor mimicking him – I haven't checked the game credits).
Also, bonus Jean Grey. 'Cause I haven't mocked her enough.

Since it's tangentially related to what I've been bending people's ears about recently, if you're interested in this kinda thing, here's yet another gender discussion™ on a comm. I ra[mbl|nt]ed in the comments about my bugbear du jour, so may get ripped to pieces.

Dammit, I resent being forced to give a shit about anything. ;)

Oh, and yes, I do consider gender to be a relative thing (you're not masculine except in relation to someone less masculine). Not to an extreme – it's not an arms race to be the least nurturing or what-have-you – just that these stereotypical components of gender are all interpersonal characteristics. No wonder I don't feel happy in any gender.

I don't hate men who were born men and feel male. I don't think they should be spending their time thinking how lucky they are compared to me or telling me how brave I am.

The best thing these people who've never heard of me can do for me is keep living their lives without any thought to whether they're 'wasting' their 'privileged' status because they don't campaign for queer awarenesss, spend time consciously loving their cisgenderedness, etc.

(Basically, putting aside the gender thing I chose as an example, what I'm trying to say is: if I was a starving child in China, I'm sure I wouldn't give a flying frell whether a Western child ate up her carrots.)

edit: I expand upon this rant in my LJ comments.

Foie gras banned in Chicago. Meat-serving restaurants – guess what? – complain!

Row over Hitler-themed restaurant. Heehee. And Jewish groups – guess what? – get very hurt and offended!

Yes, look, I know it's immature, but protesting and getting mortally wounded over it isn't exactly hurting the owner's cause, now is it? Look where he's ended up because of it.

Even if he's forced to change the name it'll be to something almost as bad, so really, crack a joke about controversy seekers and have done with it.

Somali Islamists ban animal trade. I imagine poachers are guess-what complaining, but we didn't interview any.

Woo! Here's to Sharia penalties for animal murder, the only crime that actually merits corporal punishment.

IC email bitchfights are the bestest, but the collateral from one such exchange has left me with Reach For The Stars stuck in my head.

Save me from this masquerade of spice (girls).

As some've you will've already noticed, the HHnet index page no longer links frumiously to my old Diaryland blog.

Instead, there's columnage. Don't all laugh at my css at once. I've been playing Ben Grimm all afternoon on playstation and I've decided I could stand to do a bit more clobbering. *loamy loom*

And, though nobody will ever notice, my rss.gif is custom made. I wanted 'em a bit redder, and also nobody's sure of the copyright on that little universal image all the other sites use. (Honestly, look. Even though I enjoy pixelwork, I don't create extra work for myself without at least a flimsy pretext.) I hereby release my RSS gif (version visible on HHnet's index at time of writing) into the public domain, or in countries where that's not possible, I give everyone permission to use it for anything ever for free.

Your attention please!

I'd like to nominate an honorary Best-Judge for my new world kingdom.

Further fun inside today's issue: Pretty sea-mask, pretty sea-jaws, bad baccy and monster cola.

Read the rest of this entry »

that I covet Tony Head's (en-US:Anthony Stewart Head's) voice in the most covetous way.

This wonder of self-insight comes from listening to Mitch Benn on repeat and thinking "hmm, the guy really sounds like Tony Head… and dammit, I'm jealous!"

(I have an array of sensory diff[iculti|erenc]es. Thus, I have weird ideas about who 'looks' or 'sounds like' other people. YMMV.)

Now, *removes green contact lenses* my job's great! I've been so looking forward to getting my paws on all these old, badly-coded pages. (One image, 190×93px, was 32Kb! Cue expensive-looking headshakes and "Phew, miss, you've have some real cowboys thorugh here…")

DEATH B NOT PROUD THOUGH SOM3 HAEV CALAD THE
MIGHTY AND DR3ADFUL FOR THOU ART NOT SO
FOR THOSA WHOM THOU THINKST THOU DOST OVERTHROW
DEI NOT POR DEATH NOR YET CANST THOU KIL ME
FROM!!111!! OMG REST AND SLEP WHICH BUT THY PICTURES B
MUCH PLEASUR3 THEN FROM THE MUCH MORE MUST FLOW
AND SON3ST OUR BST MEN WIT THE DO GO
R3ST OF THERE BONAS AND SUS DELIEVRY
THOU!!!11!! LOL ART SLAEV 2 FAET CHANCE KNGS AND DASPERAET MEN
AND DOST WIT POISON WAR AND SIKNES DWEL
AND POPY OR CHARMS CAN MAEK US SLEP AS WEL
AND BTAR THAN THY STROKA Y SWELST THOU TH3N
ONE?????!!?! SHORT SLEP PAST WE WAEK ATERNALY
AND D3ATH SHAL B NO MORA DEATH THOU SHALT DEI!1!!111 LOL

–John Donne

If you love me you'll make my children homeless. Oh and suck my spit LOL

This turns my skin, honestly. How blatant can you get?

Oh my gods, Bush is the only person who can make Gates a comparative hero.

Meme, because the ever-flattering Taito-Kisses did me. Comment and:

1. I'll respond with something random about you.
2. I'll challenge you to try something. [How laughable - you're all more experienced and better-read than me. But a chance to foist my favourite obscure tracks on people - ohhhh yes.]
3. I'll pick a colour or texture that I associate with you.
4. I'll tell you something I like about you.
5. I'll tell you my first/clearest memory of you.
6. I'll tell you what animal you remind me of.
7. I'll ask you something I've always wanted to ask you. [I'm quite bad at thinking of things to ask, so I may drop a really bad picture on you instead - you've been warned...]
8. If I do this for you, you must post this in your journal [but only if you want to and haven't already done so, otherwise we might end up creating an infinite time loop and then we'd all be zapped into the stone age and have to fight alien cat creatures using only the weapons we could carve out of mammoths or chalk and then there would be weird priestess women with jingly things on their staffs that never seem to get tangled up and you know I can't stand to let tangly jingly things live without swiping at them, so for the priestess women's ulcers and the fate of neolithic humanity, don't push the button!!!!].

Dog Soldiers. What an awesome, awesome film. Oh my yes.

My unbrother came over last night, brought pizza, got jumped on a lot by the dog and fell asleep in front of Willow, which was also fairly ok.

I'm home tomorrow, thus don't intend to sleep much. Yay all-nighters! Naturally nobody's around to talk to me, though. *pout*

P.S. the people's shroom is deepest red

I've never seen or touched a dead chicken before, so today was interesting. (Warning – this post contains descriptions of the aforementioned.) Read the rest of this entry »

Everyone please praise Conehead Hershey, who down-stayed out of sight of me for a whole minute!! (on his third try)

Yes, if you're used to properly trained dogs, this doesn't sound like such an achievement. When I came back into the room he'd 'crept' a little way, but this is still very good going. When he knows people have tasty things in their pockets, waiting patiently in the other room is not what he considers a reasonable expectation of him. (His parents raised him appallingly and that's all there is to it – I'm not going to undo a lifetime's bad training in a week, and if I did they wouldn't keep it up.)

Did some unofficial tech support for a workmate this morning. I will deny it vehemently and punch you for insinuating it, but teaching's in my blood. It's opposed by my father's trademark impatience with people. Thank goodness.