i think

[profess]

i need to get out more.  the joys of daddy daycare.



Osei

[profess]

spam messages, which I'm sure will be deleted soon.

Shame I thought someone was interested in my fridge magnets

[Kilmatead]

...I thought someone was interested in my fridge magnets

We're all terribly interested in them, but considering your luxurious habit of "wintering" in Tunisia with the carpet-makers, we're just a little disappointed in the distinct lack of variety shown. I mean, Sesame Street lettering? A little googling opens up a world of opportunity, sold locally in the UK just for your personal satisfaction.

In fact, I lied - we're all terribly interested in them except for Nikos, for whom the reminder of his once-great civilisation being reduced to a plasticky form of edu-tainment for Daddy-DayCare is just too painful... and, well, it's just more salt in the wound as the descendants of Alexander are left weeping at their squandered inheritance.

Ancient people learned about magnetism from lodestones, naturally magnetized pieces of iron ore. They are naturally created magnets, which attract pieces of iron. The word magnet in Greek meant "stone from Magnesia", a part of ancient Greece where lodestones were found. Lodestones suspended so they could turn were the first magnetic compasses.

[Tuxman]

I am not.

[Kilmatead]

That would explain why you never get invited to all the cool birthday parties.

As unusual as it may seem, I believe my all-encompassing generalisation was not intended to be taken literally - or, indeed, not meant to be taken seriously whatsoever. Fridge Magnets are fairly low down on the scale of all-consuming passions, I should hope. Then again, when it comes to Germans it's normal for the rest of us to assume the worst, so I included you purposefully, and originally meant to say "We're all (especially one German in particular who will deny it later but secretly harbours a longing similar to sea-sickness for cheap plasticky things) vastly fascinated by your fridge magnets."

One wonders if German sets of these letters come with umlauts? That would be neat. If not, that would also explain why you never get invited to the cool parties.

[Tuxman]

Yes, some of them do. On the other hand, we (as the land of Schiller, Goethe and Kant) usually are too sophisticated for pinning cheap plasticky things onto our fridges.

(To be more precise, tables started to turn after WWII when the younger generation started to adapt the American Way of Life and decadence.)

[Kilmatead]

...as the land of Schiller, Goethe and Kant

All dead, we'll note.

If you're so sophisticated, why did you allow your greatest living independent film director (and all-around nut-job) Werner Herzog play the "bad guy" in Tom Cruise's last bad film? You can try and blame that on the Americans too, but if any German can claim to think with his own mind, it's Herzog.

(And, just for the record, Schopenhauer makes Kant look like a garden-variety kook - even though he pays him all due respect for building upon his perceptional work, Schopenhauer took that extra step into the élan vital which Kant couldn't even conceive of. That he too was German is merely an historical coincidence, which lessens the pain a bit for the rest of us.)

[Tuxman]

All dead, we'll note.

So are the Celtish heroes; and (as I assume) the inventor of the plasticky magnet things too.

If you're so sophisticated, why did you allow your greatest living independent film director (and all-around nut-job) Werner Herzog play the "bad guy" in Tom Cruise's last bad film?

Maybe Til Schweiger's (the worst German actor) role in Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds" is a good reason. Either for consistency or for revenge.

[Kilmatead]

So are the Celtish heroes...

Not true! According to Wikipedia (that well known purveyor of all things true), Fionn mac Cumhaill (or 'Finn McCool' to you and me) is just dreaming...

Accounts of Fionn's death vary; according to the most popular, he is not dead at all, rather, he sleeps in a cave somewhere beneath Ireland, surrounded by the rest of the Fianna. One day they will awake and defend Ireland in the hour of her greatest need. In one account, it is said they will arise when the Dord Fiann (his hunting horn) is sounded three times, and they will be as strong and as well as they ever were.

[Tuxman]

"Only dreaming" like Cthulhu?

According to popular religious beliefs, there is no death anyway, it is just a very long dream until <enter your favorite entity here> comes back and saves us all or something. I'd prefer Cthulhu.

[Kilmatead]

That's the trouble with you silly negative young folk who poo-poo everything these days, you can't understand the simple joys and restorative powers of a good nap. Even that grumpy old Lovecraft fella would appreciate it, were he still breathing. (He was better at napping than writing anyway, all things considered.)

[Tuxman]

Someone calling me a young folk makes me giggle a bit, given that I'm rather near to my 30s (which I could not even reach if something unexpected happens, like Cthulhu's awakening or something). I love naps, but I can't find a good duration. I can sleep too short or too long to be alive.

[Kilmatead]

Being a medievalist (back when life was thankfully "shorter and more violent" than it is now) comes in useful from time to time - given that I'm only 45, everyone in the universe who's younger than I am and doesn't work for a living (real work, with muscles and stuff, not that fake white-collar crime most computer-kids "think" is work) is a "young folk", naturally enough. Especially those who are prone to giggle.

In the greater scheme of things, wisdom states we don't actually achieve any decent level of respect/awareness for consciousness until we're 70-ish; anyone under that age (and, indeed, most over it) are just permanently napping anyway, dreaming their own utter disdain for long life, no matter how vociferously they deny it - nature says otherwise.

[Tuxman]

"White-collar crimes" are not work, preparing them is though. (Someone told me once that young means wise. Well, thank you!)

I know people of my age who are wiser than some other people in their 70s will ever be. Poor youth.

[Kilmatead]

Someone told me once that young means wise [...] I know people of my age who are wiser than...

You do realise, of course, that that's not possible. The young know nothing of wisdom. They know lots of rubbish about lots of rubbish (such is the nature of their consciousness) - but they cannot know wisdom simply because "anyone who thinks they do - don't."

The young are (in spite of their own opinions) incapable of understanding knowledge/life/etc for the simple fact that they are young and thus have no perspective - indeed not even any awareness of what perspective means, other than a definition as a word - and mere information is not knowledge. It's a vicious circle which absolves all older people of ever bothering to take young people (or their world views) seriously. Thankfully.

Look at it this way: If at any point in the last 10 years you have enjoyed yourself even a little bit - you are immediately disqualified at having wisdom, perspective, or any hope of understanding much of anything. That's a basic natural law. Which, given the world we pretend to live in, is a very useful means of quelling the hopes, dreams, and general misguided optimism of most of the planet. Now that's something worthy of giggling at.



(Best viewed at the luxurious resolution found here.)

And if you don't think that wisdom and art have anything to do with each other, go back to white-collar crime, it's the only lost hope you've left to cling to. (And by the way, the above picture has nothing to do with religious imagery [contrary to appearances], so mewing about that won't help.)