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National Novel Writing Month

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 03:11:24 -0800

The month of the bleeding fingers
IN case you haven't noticed, it's Novel Writing Month again. This bizarre exercise in self flagellation is now an established Internet event, a monumental celebration of online time-wasting. Last year, after criticising some of the inefficiencies on the site, I foolishly reacted to a jibe that it was easy for those who couldn't do it to mock those who could write a 50,000-word novel in a month. So I did it.
I must be even more senile this year for reacting to a comment that "of course, it's the sort of thing anyone can do once, but not twice in a row." Curses. And so it begins:

Thought Train by Thamus
THE wind is up today, a thin wind in the high plains, sending ochre dust down this red river valley. The sky is pink-tinged pearl with wispy cirrus overhead and darker piles of thick clouds to the north. If it rained, it would be the first time in eons.
Somewhere beyond Earth, are telescopes seeing a brooding dust storm growling in the dark green canyons of Valles Marineris. That's 1,000 kilometers south of here but we're not worried. The scientists radio that unless it evolves into a global phenomenon, it won't bother us.
It is cold, cold, but mid-afternoon's -16.67 Celsius is at least imaginable. A brief sniff we took of the thin air was dry metallic, rusty on the tongue. Let's get the science-so-far out of the way. Although we are now 200 million kilometers from Earth, we travelled 500 million kilometers to get here in a looping arc from Earth orbit to intercept Mars orbit, since we left quietly last December with barely a headline to mark the day. It was a boring seven months, and then everything happened in the last two minutes with the vessel 10 kilometers above the planet.
The mission at that point consisted of a parachute dangling a tin hat with little rockets, and below that, a giant beach ball full of the good stuff. One minute 56 seconds later, the tin hat fired its retro-rockets for two seconds, then it and the parachute left the scene of the incident.The beach ball struck Ares Vallis at 33 kilometers per hour, bounced 18 meters high, bounced again eight meters, then bounce, bounce, roll, roll, rolled to a stop. The deflated airbags unfolded three lotus petals, and the lander shot up its camera-on-a-stick to peer around and look for the sun. It fixed on that, calculated where Earth was, and swivelled its antenna.
ET called home: "The beach ball has landed." So who's alien now? This world, or us? Us, I guess, but aaw, we're friendly aliens. If the rover wandering outside found a Martian lizard, it wouldn't kill it and send it back to earth for an autopsy. Of course not.
Next time.
By now, you're hopefully wondering about the "we" and "us." Wondering, who "wus" is. Especially after those bits about hitting red rocks at 33 kph, the 18-meter bounces. You may have wondered even earlier about that "sniffing the -16.67C mid-afternoon air." Did we really do that, sniff the chill after arriving with a bang in a beach ball full of landers and rovers and things?
Goddam right we didn't. We came hissing comfortably into the valley on the only way to travel. Thought Train. Holy roller. We came on the Thought Train.

[PICTURE: Thought Train cover design by me. ©Thamus 200901105]

http://Thamus.stumbleupon.com/review/30823612/

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 10:09:07 -0700

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Freedom From Religion: Buddhism Wins Best Religion in the World Award - One City: A Buddhist Blog for Everyone

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 07:36:32 -0700

My god exists more than your god
THE Geneva-based International Coalition for the Advancement of Religion and Spirituality (ICARUS) has chosen to bestow a special award this year on Buddhism.

Quote: ICARUS director Hans Groehlichen [said] "With organized religion increasingly used as a tool to separate and inflame rather than bring together, we felt we had to take the unusual step of creating a 'Best Religion in the World' award and making a bit of a stir, to inspire other religious leaders to see what is possible when you practice compassion."

Best religion in the world award? Isn't that a bit like a best pedophile in the vestry award? Or the best suicide bomber in the caf� award?
And what is this starry-eyed sucking up to Buddhism that goes on all over the place these days? The Dalai Lama, much as I admire the man, has got a lot of pulling-wool-over-the-eyes to answer for.
Religion of peace, religion without a god, religion that never causes wars? Which planet is that on?
No god? What about the appendages of Hindu deities and angels attached to the Buddha, who is at least as big a god to most of his simple faithful as Jesus is to his?
No violence? What about the murderous Buddhist thugs in Sri Lanka? Anyone been to Burma recently? What's the rioting in Tibet about? And let us not forget the absolute vicious tyranny that the Buddhist monks of Lhasa once imposed on the Tibetan people.
I find it mildly amusing that the organisation proferring this ludicrous award is called ICARUS - a mythical superstition about a man of such narcissistic hubris that he thought he could defy the laws of nature. (He would of course be a block-headed creationist if he actually existed).
Enough of me - here is a delightful comment by a person called "Ailine" under the news story which this review links to.

Quote: "Gee, why not broaden the appeal and call it 'Best World Superstition' award? That would give a chance for the Greek, Roman and Hindu pantheons of crazy invented gods to square up to Jesus, the Trinity, Jahwe, Allah and the woodland spirit gods of Africa and native America. And who says Satanists, Wiccans, Tarot readers, Druids and the Giant Spaghetti Monster should be left out? They're 'religions' aren't they?
I despair of humanity ever growing up. Here we are in the 21st century and we still have 'priests' rambling aroung mumbling incantations and mumbo jumbo for the gullible masses. When the first colony leaves earth for other worlds, it will have to strictly expunge all superstitious beliefs among the settlers if we are ever to make a giant leap forward in civilisation."
[MONTAGE: My god is bigger than your god. Top - Buddha, Ganesh, Yahweh. Bottom - Zeus, Allah, Jesus. Don't worship them all at once! Being a Celt, I'm off to pay homage to a tree]

http://Thamus.stumbleupon.com/review/34459018/

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 04:39:09 -0700

A thing of shreds and Patches (update)

"A wandering minstrel I;
A thing of shreds and Patches..."
(Gilbert & Sullivan, The Mikado)

I DON'T have three cats.
I didn't have any cats before Pointless befriended me on the street as a hot young kitty - even following me to a pub one night. She vanished for a year and then somehow reappeared, this time outside my door, four floors up. Hungry.
Suddenly, I didn't have one cat, wandering in and out on whims, but mostly in.
Downstairs, Pointless would hang around with a one-eyed tabby with a collar.
It was a prickly friendship: "Just because we hang out, it doesn't mean you don't annoy me. A lot!"
Pointless was the testy half, but one-eye was a sweet boy with fur that feels like cashmere, friendly to everyone - even the passing dogs like him.
It wasn't long before Pointless would tap-tap on the door and when it was opened, in would stroll four paws and three eyes, headed for the kibble counter.
Tabby lost his collar and acquired a name - Rufus MacDufus, the Legendary One-Eyed Laird of Glen Felix. Dufe, for short. Yes, I didn't have two cats.
Well a guy needs a pal when his female friend is so hissy, and it wasn't long before we found good-natured Dufe rolling in the dust under a tree with a perky, gangly, orphan street kitten who liked to throw his long paws around the Dufe's neck.
Ere long ...
That's right. Pointless taps on the door, Dufe strolls in behind her - and leaping right over their heads pounces a long-legged black-and-white bombshell, racing them to the kibble happy-hour. He soon lost his testicles and gained a name - Patch. As I said, I don't have three cats.
Two weeks ago, Patch stayed away for two days; no big deal, he's popular with the neighbours. Then we found him, shivering under a bush, in obvious pain. The vet said his back end was smashed to pieces with multiple bone and joint fractures. The vet talked of serious surgery, titanium pins, hospital cage, medication - of course, for a street cat, it would be humane to put him out of his ...
I'm not humane. So Patch had six hours of fine surgery, and three days in cat hospital, and on July 16 came home. So, I don't have three cats again (just an extra five eyes and 11 legs).
I also, suddenly, don't have as much money as I did last week.
Update: Poor old Patch had a relapse, with a titanium pin sticking out of his foot joint, so it was back to the surgeon and the clinic cage for a few more days. Now he's started recovering all over again today, this time with a heavy leg plaster.
[PICTURE: Not a happy boy. Patch, back from a second round of surgery, complaining to me about the vet and the annoying leg plaster. And he says yellow isn't his colour either. �Thamus 20090723]

RT�.ie Entertainment: Author Frank McCourt dies, aged 78

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 13:08:59 -0700

Ashes to ashes
THE first time I ever used the "new" online book service Amazon was to buy Angela's Ashes. I was dumbfounded when the book traveled to me across two continents in only five days.
My opinion of Amazon has plummeted since it was in its salad days, but I am still in two minds (at least) about the Ashes.
I grew up in 50s-60s rural Ireland and while it was a poor place (no electricity in the early years, water carried from a well twice daily), and a hard life at times, it was not a miserable place.
I and my friends had a full, almost idyllic childhood, in the dying tranquility of Victorian ways, and that's not hindsight - I kept diaries.
But then, our fathers always had jobs and didn't drink their wages; our mothers boxed our ears, ironed our clothes and dragged us to church on Sundays; our teachers dragged promising pupils to their homes for extra lessons, and often taught us fishing, or rabbit hunting, or camping as well.
In the summer we voluntarily worked on farms or picked fruit for extra money.
I therefore found the relentless, unremitting, degredation and misery of Frank McCourt's book hard to swallow.
We always knew Limerick was a miserable dump of a city (and now notorious for gang violence).
But come on, so the 1930s were tough everywhere, but not really much different from the 50s in Ireland, which had been cut off from the world in a sort of uninvolved limbo during the world-war years of the 1940s.
That said, I do not begrudge the author his Pulitzer Prize, the millions his book brought him late in life, and his fabulous sucess and fame.
It is good he had it all, and sad he didn't live a bit longer to enjoy it more. I have no hesitation in regarding Angela's Ashes as literature in the finest Irish tradition.
Frank McCourt was a charmer and a raconteur and a fine writer. In short - a fine Irishman. We will miss him.

http://Thamus.stumbleupon.com/review/33762140/

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 05:26:03 -0700

An economic crisis affects everyone

Travian - Browser Game - Romans, Gauls &Teutons

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 02:58:29 -0700

Raiding with the Travian troopers

I FEAR I have become embroiled in something even more addictive than Stumbleupon although, no doubt, the novelty will probably wear off, as it does with all things mortal.
I Stumbledupon Travian, a browser game of ancient worlds developed in Germany and played by millions of addicts around the world.
You start with an empty village site - Roman, Gaulish or Teuton - and develop its buildings, resources and defences.
While you struggle to do this, you are raided by other tribes who make off with your precious supplies. You of course do the same to these thieving bastards and strive to become an even bigger raider yourself.
The game is complex, but the learning curve is a gentle slope because each game lasts around 300 days and you only need to log on a couple of times a day to nudge the development of your empire and send out your raiding parties.
The only way to survive eventually is to form alliances with other players to share wealth and military clout.
You start off by developing a few tribal soldiers, basic buildings and some units each of essential resources - wheat, metal, wood and clay.
However, after nearly a year the end game involves enormous forces. Massive alliances with hundreds of thousands of troops are deployed to build the final objective - a huge and marvellous Wonder of the World building.
Just as they start this task, the game servers release a deadly new random, powerful and uncontrollable computer tribe called Natars, who ferociously battle alliances at every level of their progress in constructing the World Wonder.
When one alliance manages to complete this edifice to level 100, the server stops, the game ends, and the accolades for winners and best alliances, players, attacks and defenders are handed out. A few weeks later, the server restarts for a new game.
There are dozens of servers in every country and for every language. For example, the one for Britain and Ireland is travian.co.uk, Australia is travian.com.au, and the global one for all nations is travian.com. Americans can play with themselves (the world doesn't exist) on travian.us.
If any of my SU friends here are players, message me, and we'll discuss some evil plot.

[PICTURE: My Celtic (Gaul) village under development on a travian.co.uk server, with the name removed to hide its identity and resource level from enemies. The server started in April, so it's advancing well. For those in the know, the buildings, moving clockwise from the trees, top at 12:00 o'clock, are - blacksmith; military academy; barracks (tents); armoury; king's palace; stable; marketplace; granary, (with hero's residence and main building on its right in inner circle); warehouse and embassy.]

http://www.myconfinedspace.com/?attachment_id=74304

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 03:26:53 -0700

State of Ignorance dominates as status of education declines

I have no idea why someone sent me this piece of garbage. Perhaps it was so that I might take a moment to marvel at the enormous waste of time and energy some Internet people pour into vast wells of nothingness.
This "map of humanity" lacks purpose, logic, artistry, humanity, or even a smidgen of humour. It is pointless, tasteless and relentless. In so far as it contains anything, that would be lopsided Christian-American propaganda, racism, contempt for humanity, and intolerance.
And - a note to the creator of this ludicrous graphic - observe my spelling (in the above sentence) of your state of intolerance (map opposite). It has one less letter than your state of iggnorrance.

The Pagan Origins of the Christian Easter Tradition | Bukisa.com

Sun, 12 Apr 2009 02:56:45 -0700

Resurrection: Shaggy rabbit redux

A MAN was out driving on Easter Sunday morning when the Easter Bunny suddenly hopped across the road. He swerved to avoid hitting the legendary rabbit, but failed. Eggs flew out of the basket, sweets too.
The driver pulled off to the side of the road, and went to see what had become of the basket-bearing bunny. To his dismay, the colorful rabbit lay dead.
The driver sat beside the rabbit, consumed with guilt. A woman driver came by and saw a man crying by the side of the road and pulled over. She went and asked him what was wrong.
"I feel terrible," he said, "I accidentally hit the Easter Bunny and now he's dead. What can I do?"
The woman patted his head and told him not to worry, since she knew exactly what to do. She went to her car, opened the glove compartment and pulled out a spray can. She walked over to the limp, dead rabbit, and sprayed the entire contents of the can
all over it.
Miraculously the Easter Bunny came back to life, jumped up, gathered up his spilled eggs and chocolate, waved his paw at the two humans, and hopped across the road. After hopping 50 meters, the Easter Bunny stopped, turned around, waved again, and hopped on down the road another 50 meters. Then he stopped, turned and waved again.
The man, pleased and astonished, asked the woman, "What in heaven's name is in your miracle spray can?"
She smiled and held up the can so he could read the label.
"Restores life to dead hair," it said.
"Adds permanent wave."

Scot who created Tel Aviv hailed in citys centenary celebrations - Scotsman.com News

Sat, 04 Apr 2009 13:43:35 -0700

City State of Tel Aviv parties its centenary

RESIDENTS of Tel Aviv like to refer to the city as The Bubble, or The City State to distance themselves from the messy goings-on beyond their boundaries.
They could have chosen to consider it the de-facto capital of Israel, instead of dreary, crazy and religiously cracked Jerusalem, but even that would be too lowly for the undisputed secular, cultural, liberal and commercial powerhouse on this strip of the east Mediterranean coast.
"Independent City State of Tel Aviv" has just the right defiant ring to it for a place also known as "the city that never stops" because of its hectic nightlife (including a vibrant gay sub-culture), and 24-hour musical, artistic and caf� social whirl.
A hundred years is not much of an age for a city - not too far away, the 10,000 year old Damascus claims (rightly) to be the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world.
But Tel Aviv is something of a legend in other ways. Its urban area is the second biggest city economy in the Middle East after Cairo - and it's the 52nd richest city in the world.
Part of Tel Aviv, known as the White City, is a UNESCO World Heritage site, protecting the last remaining street blocks of the Modernist school of Bahaus architecture, which was outlawed by Germany's Nazis in 1933 and brought to Palestine (as it was then) by fleeing Jewish architects.
But enough babbling - I have a city's hundredth birthday to celebrate. Where? Why, at Molly Blooms, Tel Aviv's excellent Irish pub, of course.

[PICTURE: Fireworks over city hall tonight, while the city dwellers partied in Rabin Square below. �Thamus 090404. For more pictures of street scenes during the day, see here.]