Cheap Therapy

Fabulous last paragraph in this article about the new Iranian “Be alert, not alarmed” national security hotline. Or watch the video (requires Windows Media or Flip4Mac WMV plugins)

Know Thyself

by Alexander Pope

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;
The proper study of mankind is Man.
Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,
A being darkly wise and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side,
With too much weakness for the Stoic’s pride,
He hangs between; in doubt to act or rest,
In doubt to deem himself a God or Beast,
In doubt his mind or body to prefer;
Born but to die, and reasoning but to err;
Alike in ignorance, his reason such
Whether he thinks too little or too much:
Chaos of thought and passion, all confused;
Still by himself abused, or disabused;
Created half to rise and half to fall;
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled:
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!

Cool wikipedia article on colour differentiation in different languages.

I saw in the paper that Bobby Fischer died the other day, still the holder of many chess records.

In May 1949, the six-year-old Fischer learned how to play chess from instructions found in a chess set that his sister bought at a candy store below their Brooklyn apartment.

For everything related to the Battlestar Galactica universe, check out the Battlestar Wiki in one of 7 languages.

• Cleared some tree bits off the roof
• Upgraded the network so St. Isidore now has to bless packets 10 times faster
• Kept Puggle and Bilby occupied
• Enjoyed the cool breeze
• Scanned some of the paper mountain

Left to do today

• Fix reticulation
• Dig more trampoline hole
• Minor shopping

Puggle would not wait easily for Christmas morning, and a chance to open his stocking (after all, it’s got Chippies in it Read “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” to him last night after a brief stint at church (running into past flames :), Christmas light watching (replete with own synchronised FM soundtrack) and preparations for today (Yay for last minute on-line christmas shopping :).Breakfast of muffins, fruit, etc. With family, friends and grandparents. Puggle has trains, tools, a fake fishtank (c/o the next-door neighbour) and a post office/general store. And a forever flashlight that will wear him out trying to power it, hopefully :)Haul includes West Wing, Maggie Beer, clothes,  an audio book (thanks Liz!), Puggle constructed rocky road, Muppets In Space (for watching with Puggle), 28 Days Later (for watching without anyone :)Then it’s off to dinner, second round of presents with the other grandparents. Brief unintentional nap. Pack up, return home, retire children.Collapse, blog.  Queen’s Christmas message 2007 (via YouTube, lots of people trying to get hits from those search terms!)  Today’s discretionary electricity usage went on Aircon. My friend in Exmouth complained that he’d gone up there for Christmas and it was hotter down here!

Beowulf was very cool.

Possible spoilers below.

On the animation side, I’m guessing we’re about 2 movies away from being unable to tell live action from animated. Most of that will probably be because the badly animated scenes will have reached a quality such that you won’t notice they’re not real and they won’t snap you out of the reality. Regardless of how good the well animated scenes are, I think the film’s only as good as its lowest common denominator animation.The models were great, the dragon was fabulous (I’m sure there’s some Godzilla or Mothra somewhere in its heritage

I’m hoping the DVD release at least won’t feature the somewhat farcical genital hiding necessary when Beowulf goes into combat naked. Also, the film suffered a bit from being released in some places in 3D, thus necessitating lots of ‘things poking at the screen’ to show you how good the 3D is, arrows, flagpoles, that sort of thing (perhaps it’s fortunate they didn’t show Beowulf’ genitals It may also just be that I’m oversensitive to such things having previously worked with 3D stereoscopy.

The story has survived through time, and the script by Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary brings it to (larger than) life for the film, while at the same time highlighting the human failings of the characters and adding the onset of Christianity as the up and coming religion. Grendel is hideous and there is much mead, women and song amongst the ongoing carnage, along with the embellishments of an oral folklore tradition when the heroes were more heroic, the monsters more monstrous and those who survived the carnage got to drink, sing and wench (or be a wench?) once more after burying their dead.

… could get you 40 lashes and up to 6 months in jail in Sudan.

Saudi Arabia, our partners in peace.