Random notes and thoughts

[misscam]

The mystery of the 'reindeer' visitor

And that's not far from where I live, either. Heh. I must admit, I found it funny. The things people will do with their time, eh?

What are the odds this CSI post will turn into a shipwar?

Or alternatively, remain sane?

Random notes:
- Is it sad of me to buy the Civ IV expansion pack just so I can play the Vikings and CONQUER THE WORLD with them? Cripes, me and computer games sometimes.
- Yesterday was Roald Dahl Day. Yay Dahl. I love his books. Grew up with them, really. (Him and Astrid Lindgren were probably the two most enduring influences from my literary childhood.) Not so strange, he was of Norwegian descent (his parents were both Norwegian and he is named after Roald Amundsen, the Norwegian polar explorer) and we are fiercly fond of our own.
- GAFF is kinda going to the shits, innit?
- I've started reading the Temeraire books, and I'm really liking them so far. Yay flist for alerting me to their existence.
- House is actually starting up on our main TV channel very soon, I've discovered. Should I watch?
- I need to buy a new shelf again. Damn, books and DVDs fill up fast.
- I'm having some professional pictures taken soon and feeling a bit weird about it. Ah well. I'll scan in some of them when it's all done, anyway, so you can all see how I look. Blurry webcam pics ain't the best, after all.
- I wish Bush would STFU some. Then again, I always do.

Stayed up for too late yesterday watching this loooong movie on Mohammed, which was a somewhat peculiar experience as the title character didn't really appear. Islam forbids the depiction of Mohammed (part of the reason for the row over the Mohammed cartoons, as a lot of you probably remember) and a lot of the movie was people talking about what Mohammed would do and some of it was filmed in Mohammed's POV, thereby not really showing him. Also, it was a very glorifying potrayal, which made an interesting change from a lot of the stuff said about Islam by us in the West these days. A lot of people are proclaiming Islam all evil and their religion all good, and I'm just left scratching my head.

Really, from my vantage point of an atheist, I don't really find Islam any worse or better than any of the other religions. I mean, Christianity also has nutters twisting their message (hello, Fred Phelps, still a-hating?), fractions fighting each other (Protestants and Catholics, oh my), wars in its name (them Crusades, them Crusades), people using it for political gain (do I even need to name anyone?), people being shitty in the name of it (burning some witches, yay!) and inner struggles between moderates and fundamentalists (see Europe, history of). As a woman, I have my issues with parts of Islam, but so I do with every religion. (Though the issues may vary.) And really, if you consider that Islam is 600 years younger than Christianity and cast your mind back to Europe 600 years ago - just look up some of the shit that went on back then, yeah? Let he who is without brutal massacres throw the first 'your religion is the EVIL ONE!!!!!eleventy-one!', huh?

In other news:
Hezbollah accused of war crimes
Norway refuses NATO plan
Damaged Munch paintings to be shown
Oil prospects in Cuba raises issues with the US embargo
Drastic shrinkage of Arctic ice
Rowling in slight airport security hiccup

Comments

[teenwitch77.livejournal.com]

HOUSE!

Ahem. Yes, yes do watch. I think you'll like the humour. It's always hard to predict how people will react to it though, but I think you'll enjoy it. I've said it before and I'll say it again, you remind me of House sometimes *grins* And I mean that in the nicest way possible.

Roald Dahl. I grew up with a lot of his books too.

Oh CSI fandom. I miss you, but on the other hand, I don't, because you're crazy. (as an aside, House shipper wars are pretty freaking nuts. So yay. They're inescapable)

[misscam.livejournal.com]

I'll find out if I'm offended or not when I watch, I guess :P

I have no intention whatsoever to get into ship stuff even if I like House, I think. I've seen the wank and I want to stay well, well away.

CSI season sure ain't far away. That'll be interesting.

[falena]

I didn't know it was Roald Dahl Day!*cries* I think I'm going to re-read the BFG to celebrate. Better late than never. I grew up with his books too and I love him. When someone asks me to name the best children author he's the one I immediately think of. Not JKR.

Temeraire series, huh?*googles and adds it to the 'to rent at the library' list*

I love House. I love Veronica Mars too, though, so you might want to wait for someone else's opinion.

I hate being photographed, professionally or not. You have my sympathies.

I wish Bush would STFU some. Then again, I always do.
It's good to know that some things never change.;)

And really, if you consider that Islam is 600 years younger than Christianity and cast your mind back to Europe 600 years ago - just look up some of the shit that went on back then, yeah? Let he who is without brutal massacres throw the first 'your religion is the EVIL ONE!!!!!eleventy-one!', huh?
*lol* You make a very good point there, though. Everybody should really mind their own motes or whatever. :P

[misscam.livejournal.com]

*nods* I'm not sure if I loved Lindgren or Dahl the most, but they're both definitely edging out all other competition. And I still reread both. Just read The Witches again, and I'm trying to track down Danny the Champion of the World.

Yes. Temeraire. The first book is His Majesty's Dragon. It has dragons in the Napolean war. Awesome.

Indeed. I've lost counts how many times I've rolled my eyes at someone proclaiming Islam the Devil's Work yet again. Bitch, please.

[sarie-gamgee.livejournal.com]

I totally missed Roald Dahl's birth anniversary. I was looking for an author to commemorate in class through the school year, and I was planning to read some of his works (some poetry, and The Giraffe, the Pelly and Me) to my 1st year students, so this anniversary should come in handy. Thanks for letting us know.

I've lost the count of the times I read the Six Bullerby Children books by Lindgren as a child. I didn't seem to get tired of them, and I still read some chapters from time to time.

As for House, I watched the 1st season when it was aired here, then lost track of it. But I definitely enjoyed House's dark sense of humour, so you may enjoy it as well.

[misscam.livejournal.com]

:)

That's the one where six children live on three farms next to each other or some such, isn't it? I remember reading it, and I think I saw the TV version as well. My favourite was always The Brothers Lionheart and Mio, my Mio.

I guess we'll see if I like House or not.

[natterfly.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, watch House! It's not quite as quirky as Grey's A, but it's definitely addicting.

A lot of people are proclaiming Islam all evil and their religion all good, and I'm just left scratching my head.

I agree. The sentiment that Islam itself is a bad, bad thing makes me nervous. These kind of shotgun reactions aren't going to help anything, after all.

[misscam.livejournal.com]

Only likely to make it worse and make for more resentment both ways, really.

[psychater.livejournal.com]

Thank God for people like you. Understanding that not all of us Muslims are evil. I mean, honestly, even I am pissed with Osama and his gang, because hello, if not for him? I'd be on my way to London right now, minus the weird stares/looks/glares/temptation to stab me I would get from people.

You're having issues with Islam? So am I. And I'm a Muslim.

You'd think that they thought "BOMB THE TWIN TOWERS ZOMG NOWWWW!!" is be written in the Quran (our Holy Book) but it's actually not. It's really really not and people just don't seem to get that.

You have no idea how much I adore you right now. Thanks so much for understanding.

[anamin.livejournal.com]

I posted this yesterday. It was a conversation my family and I had on Sunday:

http://www.livejournal.com/editjournal.bml?journal=anamin&itemid=128524

[tilly-stratford.livejournal.com]

I missed Roald Dahl day?! (Alternatively: There is a Roald Dahl day?!)

Why didn't I hear of this before? He's one of my favourite authors, for goodness sake, and by far the most popular author in my writing class. Aww....

[misscam.livejournal.com]

Because this is the first one ever, apparently. They seem to be hoping to make it a yearly thing, so there'll always be next year.

He really is twistingly fabelous.

[jenbachand.livejournal.com]

Season 1 House was so great. Season 2 was great. 3rd season is kinda meh so far. I'm hoping it picks up soon.

So, I head over to the newspaper page, read the artist story, e-mail it to the Norwegian who shares my bed, and then click on the English front page.

The whole story on animal bordellos. O__o

At least it's a break from election year crap I'm getting here at home.

[misscam.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I read that one and winced. There was just wank about this zoophilia thing too, and now I feel a bit disturbing knowing about this trend or whatever you want to call it. Um. Yeah.

[all_at_once.livejournal.com]

House is a great show and I highly recommend it to anyone. It's got great characters, interesting medical cases (far more interesting than CSI if you ask me) and the irresistibly sexy Hugh Laurie. Couldn't ask for much more than that! :) And don't forget about teh snark. Laugh. Out. Loud. Funny. :)

[misscam.livejournal.com]

Snark is good, truly.

[beck-liz.livejournal.com]

- Is it sad of me to buy the Civ IV expansion pack just so I can play the Vikings and CONQUER THE WORLD with them?

No, considering I bought it solely for the cool new Civs, buildings and units. So, hey. Go Vikings! :-)

[misscam.livejournal.com]

THE WORLD IS MINE.

[piaffe.livejournal.com]

I got started on the Temeraire series recently too - it's sort of a cross between historial fiction and fantasy, which pleases me to no end :)

You should at least try it - if only to see what the fuss is about. (House, I mean.) I watched it a few times and thought it not too bad - only I keep missing when it's on ;)

And Roald Dahl day? Wow - I never knew that ;) I used to enjoy reading his books when I was younger. We had to analyse some some of his short story stuff for English once, and I really really liked how he always managed to throw a twist at the end of his stories.

[misscam.livejournal.com]

Yes - and I like what the author does with the dragons. I'm only halfway through the second book, though.

His adult books, you mean? Yeah - I have more of a relationship with his children's books, I must admit. But I have read several of his more morbid short stories.

[norwegianne.livejournal.com]

Roald Dahl is the best. I adore Mathilda and The Witches, but I also always found his self-biography, Boy, very interesting.

And, yes... Norwegian descent.

Have you looked at his cookbook? It's extremely fascinating with Norwegian recipes for krokanis and kransekake and stuff.

[misscam.livejournal.com]

Certainly paints a very grim picture of schools in Britain at that time. And the bits about Norway in there are quite lovely.

No, I haven't. Have you tried making some of the stuff? Is it good?

[anamin.livejournal.com]

I think you should watch House, if you don't already, I don't know. I think you'd enjoy his sarcastic, biting wit.

[misscam.livejournal.com]

Heh. Perhaps I will. I do like the actor from various British shows he's done.

[cincoflex.livejournal.com]

Roald Dahl, one of my smutiest influences! Yes, yes, I've loved all the books he's written for children, certainly--I can't NOT love them as a children's librarian--but honestly, some of his adult books and anthologies are masterpieces! My Uncle Oswald was a direct influence on my story Blistered Libido, and Switch Bitch and Kiss Kiss were full of darkly wry humor.

I was also delighted to find out he'd written the screenplay for the original movie of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, because his lovely snarkiness came though SO well in that first version!

Ahem, so, big fan here.

You'll enjoy House, and whether or not you want to ship is up to you, dear. As I see it, there's more to the show than the romantic/lustful potential, certainly, so give it a shot for the first few eps. You can always drop it if it doesn't appeal.
(Reply to this)

[misscam.livejournal.com]

Heh. Funny how some authors just camp out in your brain and whisper things to your muse, innit? In Dahl's case, I guess it's kinky stuff. Naughty Norwegian, truly.

He did have a narrative style I adore, whatever the subject.

Mmm. Nice to have shows you just like as shows sometimes, too. And no way in heck am I getting into Cuddy versus Cameron. Nuh huh.

[yattara.livejournal.com]

I'm still kinda so-so on House. The snark is interesting, I'm still not too sure whether I like the rest of it. But Hugh Laurie is many shades of awesome.

GAFF? Haven't been able to get on the boards for ages. Stupid server. Stupid boardmessages, it's not worth the trouble anymore.

[misscam.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the server coupled with other issues does seem to slowly be killing the board. Alas.

[adraefan.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately Muslims are to Westerners, at best, the Other and, at worst, crazed misogynist fundamentalist terrorists. Both are pretty erroneous POVs, and it's scary how little many Westerners know about Islam. The best book to read is A History of God, by Karen Armstrong. It gives you a very good, wide-scope understanding of all three monotheistic religions and - perhaps surprisingly, to some people - Islam comes out way on top in terms of being a progressive, just, profound faith. But the last 150 years have tarnished Islam - it's been at the mercy of fundamentalist crazies for a long time.

If you ask me, it's because of all the political shit - the constant vying for control by two superpowers during the Cold War (and now one, in this post-CW world) because the Arab region has the cursed blessing of sitting on a goldmine of petroleum. That sort of political and economic turmoil would fuck any religion/culture up. And forgive my language, but we can find the Christian mirror for this as well: Western Christianity spiralled out of control during all the socioeconomic changes of the burdgeoning Industrial Revolution - it's in the 16th and 17th centuries that you see all the (again, forgive my opinions for showing through) nutty sects developing - all the 'hellfire and brimstone' anthropomorphications of God, the arguments of predestination and humans being tainted, sinful beings. It's just like they say about John Milton's God from Paradise Lost: no one could love that sort of anthropomorphic, unfair, authoritarian God - and thus it's easy for atheism to develop; as it undoubtedly has in Europe, in the last 200 years. But the important thing is that that God isn't what the original Judeo-Christians believed in and developed - just like the current incarnations of fundamentalist Islam cannot be what Mohammed intended.

I feel like sometimes economic turmoil kills religion - or at least severely harms it, turns it into a vehicle or tool. You don't see these sorts of problems in countries/cultures which had relatively smooth economic development - e.g. the Shintoism and Buddhism of Japan.

Just like I often think Jesus would be shocked to find the sort of cult of personality worship his name evokes in modern Christians, Mohammed would probably not be so cool with the burqa and would MOST DEFINITELY not be cool with suicide bombings and their misguided, misnomered 'jihad'. Modern Muslim fundamentalists took things like respect for Mohammed's wives (they were the only ones who were veiled originally; then it spread to everyone, 'we're all princesses', and then it became not a sign of respect but an obligatory repression of women) or fighting for social justice and economic equity (which is what Mohammed said, and then men like Sayid Qutb redefined 'jihad' to include attacking and imposing, rather than defending) and turned them into tools for repression and war. It's sad, and we're living right now in a difficult time for religious understanding - there's a lot of ignorance, which fuels a lot of knee-jerk reactions. Agh, like what really kills me is when a monotheist of the Judeo-Christian-Islamist tradition doesn't realize that Yahweh = God = Allah (and forgive me for saying the name of God). Both Jesus and Mohammed made very clear that they were from the same branch, they were all praying to the God of Abraham. Neither of them had any intention of completely breaking off from the Jewish origins - that happened later, and, if you ask me, to the great detriment to all three religions.

I'll put my soapbox away now.

[misscam.livejournal.com]

I think to a certain degree Islam is facing what Christianity did some hundred years back - an inner struggle between those wanting or not resisting reform and those who are more fundamentalist. The world has changed since the religion was shaped, and it's a sort of struggle between those wanting to let the religion shape with the world or those wanting to shape the world with the religion. So yeah, I can agree with part of what you're saying here. (Other parts I'm still trying to figure out in my mind and form an opinion on, you know?)

There's probably a gazillion more issues at it too. Standard of living, certainly. The promise of paradise is more alluring when your life is shitty, after all.

And Islam does actually have in its Quran that both Christianity and Judaism is to be respected as basically different versions of the same faith. Which at times seems to have gotten lost.

But yeah, those three religions have huge similarities and it's a shame the differences are used to launch war.

[wiccagirl24.livejournal.com]

My favorite ever Dahl story is Lamb to Slaughter. My fav novel is Matilda. I don't think I've read anything by Astrid Lindgren though. I'll have to goggle him.

My vote is yes on House. I think teenwitch is right when she said that your snark reminds her of House. Plus I can't wait to see your take on the characters.

[misscam.livejournal.com]

Her :P She died in 2002. I actually cried.

Oh blah, I'm not going to get all interrogated on my ship preferences, am I? :P

[redscharlach.livejournal.com]

I've never watched CSI, but you do a fine job of keeping the world up-to-date on all the wank that matters, so I thought of you when reading this article from yesterday's Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,1871268,00.html). I especially wonder how many crazed and offended fangurls have emailed this journalist so far? Perhaps none. Perhaps thousands. I hate to think...

[misscam.livejournal.com]

If the hive of GSR has spotted it, probably a few. And probably a few of the really, really hating-GSR crowd have sent their joyful agreement.

Man, some of the comments on the articles the media in the US did just went so far into batshit I wonder what the hell those journalists got to thinking.

[cedara]

Re: House

Try it out, I got recently pimped and atm I'm reading a lot of fic in that fandom. Gregory House is a wonderfully flawed character.

[misscam.livejournal.com]

Is there a lot of badfic?

[jessickuh.livejournal.com]

I loved Roald Dahl books. I totally wanted to turn witches into mice, be best friends with Matilda, roam distant and faraway lands with the BFG, and swim in chocolate rivers with Agustus Gloop.

[mthespinner.livejournal.com]

I remember that one. It was translated as Mio My Son and I still love it...what a wonderful story...and so gently told.

[siraj.livejournal.com]

"Is it sad of me to buy the Civ IV expansion pack just so I can play the Vikings and CONQUER THE WORLD with them?"

Not one bit. Considering I do the same thing with the Egyptians in Civ III... Now if only they had an Anubis avatar for that game...

[kasuchi]

I second (whatever) the nom that you watch House; it's not too hard to get into, and the characters don't suck. Although (and Em and I were talking about this) it's starting to feel like CSI. Around S5. It's kind of scary.

As for the Mohammed movie, I saw that in Humanities. It actually got the internation Muslim faith association thing (akin to the Church) to approve of the film. And there's a version shot in Arabic with actual Arabic actors. It's a fantastic movie, and the ways they get around showing Mohammed are pretty creative. And that film made me realize that a lot of the stuff we hear about Islam is pretty slanted. Hardcore. You can interpret religion however you want; the Bible is fun and vague like that. The Koran is no different; in all honesty, Islam was actually pretty open to their Jewish and Christian brothers; they said that those two were their brothers in arms because they all believe in the same God.

*is Hindu* Um, 'your religion is the EVIL ONE' [exclamation points ad nauseum].

[wintergreen126.livejournal.com]

definetely give house a try. oh, and the reindeer visitor was quite amusing. reminded me of this story that happened near me a few years back:

Police called to a Giant supermarket in Yardley, Pa., in January arrested Samuel Feldman, 37, and charged him with one count of criminal mischief but suspected he is the person responsible for a three-year spree of squeezing, smashing and poking packages of bread and cookies in various area supermarkets, ruining more than $8,000 worth of goods. After the squeezer had struck more than 100 times in the area, Giant installed a hidden camera and, according to police, when Feldman was seen squeezing bread on the third separate occasion, he was arrested.

oh, the crazy things people do...

[jocelyncs.livejournal.com]

I wish Bush would STFU some.

Imagine how we feel. Did you hear that a Senate committee has rejected another "anti-terror" bill that he's been harping for? Very exciting, especially since he's been evoking (or IMHO, degrading) 9/11 like mad lately what with the 5-year anniversary. I couldn't even stand to watch the memorials because he was always on TV flapping his trap.

What's happened on GAFF? I've barely been able to get on the board lately because it's always down...or is that what you were referring to?

[furius.livejournal.com]

Roald Dahl, the only writer who wrote an interesting story involving public school, because he made it all up! (Well, mostly.)

I've infinite love for his short stories; they are gloriously disturbing.