A Thread for Random Musings

[lemming]

I've got to do something today for the feral cats. Their feeding station is a little too exposed to the elements and there's a cat food popsicle there. Damn wind.

[austenandrews]

Finally, the next episode of 24 is airing tonight. This season is even better than the last one.

 

-AA

[Hermit]

Whew, I can post again.

 

The earth is saved

 

I probably have Ben or Dan to thank for that. Thanks, guys

[Vondy]

I see the whole face... but then, I see all.

[Solomon]

Never let a fiend, even a trusted friend, near your computer if you have auto-login to a message board.

[Vondy]

I just did a self-assessment for an english composition course I'm taking. That was extremely painful. I hate the way I write.

[Mightybec]

Why am I reading ghost threads, at night, in a haunted building...

[Bazza]

The meaning of "Kara"?

 

I was thinking today: Kara Ka.ra.

Ka is an ancient Egyptian (word / image) for spirit and "Ra" was god of the sun and creator god of the Ennead. So "Kara" must then mean "Spirit of light" aka Sunny, joyful, happy etc. To me, her name fits her well, really well.

 

Edit: thought about it a bit more and come up with a new 'definition': highly spirited, full of life, and looks to the light side of life.

 

Also a note that Rachel has "Ra" as well. I'm guessing that "chel" must translate to "master of bat-fu" in some ancient tongue. . Seriously I don't know what "chel" means. anyone help? Google?

[Vondy]

ALL FLESH MUST BE EATEN!!!

 

/rant mode on!

 

So we got dusted with snow pretty good, and because cities in the Puget Sound region are built on hills, and because our snow tends to be extremely icy (or just on top of a sheet of ice) the region shuts down. Fine. All good. We all get a day off.

 

So I come in to work this morning and I have ten e-mail from project managers who want to know why the builds that were released yesterday by the build manager - remotely from home when no one else was here - weren't accepted yet.

 

The Project Manager Manager actually came by to petulently ask: what "our problem" was? Which is amusing because I'm contingent staff and not the correct person to take it up with.

 

So I nonchalantly ask: "did you come in to work yesterday?"

 

They seem suprised and bleat out "no" like a frightened sheep.

 

So I nonchalantly ask: "did you work remotely from home yesterday?"

 

They're more wary now, but their mind is still coming up to speed with where this is going (why don't people think faster than they talk, I find myself wondering while they're still trying to figure out what I'm up to) and they uneasily say: "no."

 

So I nonchalantly ask: "but I was supposed to?"

 

Silence. Followed by a furrowed brow and a concerned expression that cries out for help in the wilderness: "stop the logic! it hurts"

 

They say: "couldn't you have razzed in?" //since I'm contingent staff the answer is "no, honey, I can't," but I'm smart enough not to say that...

 

So I pointedly tell them: "Take it up with Jason, who is, incidentally, your point of contact for the loc test team."

 

She walks off in a hugg muttering something about 'stupid testers'

 

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!

[misterdeath]

Mom and dad should be getting the CD today. Wonder how long it'll take them to call us so we can help them.

 

I hate Microsoft and HP.

 

Mom gets a Printer/Scanner/Fax/Copier device for Christmas from my dad.

 

But, in order to install the operating software, you have to have IE5.01 or higher. Not be connected to the internet, just have IE installed.

 

According to the friendly HP people, there's no way around it, but also that IE isn't necessary for operation of the software at all.

 

It's apparently just part of the check in process. Once the software installs, everything's fine. You just can't install it unless you've got IE.

 

And my parents don't. Mom's a technophobe, and they live in the middle of nowhere, and certainly don't have internet access.

 

So, they've got no way to get it either.

 

So, they call my wife and I, so we can make it better. So, we need to get them IE, somehow.

 

Nowhere on Microsoft's website do they discuss what's actually on the CD version of IE. One might assume that it's all the information needed to put IE on a computer without having said computer online. But, I can't be certain, because the download version makes the computer go online to get the rest of the program.

 

So, I spend tons of time on what they delightfully call the Microsoft discussion boards until I find someone that's asked a similar question. No answer.

 

Finally I notice that someone asked about downloading the Entire Software Package, and was directed to a nice website that has that information.

 

So, I follow the instructions, download everything, burn it to a CD, and install it on my not connected to the internet PC to see if it works. It does. Yay!

 

So, I package up the CD and send it away, so mom and dad can get it.

 

I wrote out detailed instructions in the move your mouse to here, click on this, move the mouse to the top, do this vein.

 

I wonder how they're going to screw it up, and when the first phonecall will come in.

 

Damned technophobic luddites.

 

D

[Solomon]

Originally posted by Morningstar70

I spend one year going from 296 pounds to 249 pounds.

 

I think I'm healthy. I allow myself the treat today of a couple mini-cans of Pringles, two Little Debbies Nutty Bar packs and two Little Debbies Swiss Rolls packages.

 

I don't eat that crap often... maybe once a week.

 

I had a fasting blood test Saturday. I figured that since I lost nearly 50 pounds, I have blood so pure, Lestat and Dracula would be whacking each other with Cadillacs to tap my veins. (I'd hold out, though, for Elvira... ).

 

I come back with a Glucose of 324. My Cholesterol is HALF again as high as it should be.

 

Ever hear the sound of your world breaking like glass around you?

 

Sorry to hear this. You have my sympathy.

[Mightybec]

Why has my world been plauged with The Wiggles?

[Mightybec]

Do you think my wife would notice if I got another tattoo?

[lemming]

Found in job lisiting

 

"Hell-desk style support for remote users"

 

Sounds appropriate.

[Hermit]

A public service reminder

 

Originally posted by Old Man

the only rule is that you cannot reply to someone else's post. Each post should have as little to do with the others as possible.

 

http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10576

[Vondy]

One of the books we've been assigned for the English course I'm taking is Ishmael. I have a problem with this book, though it is propably not what people would typically think that problem would be. You see I've read it before, and I find the author's presentation disingenuous.

 

I attended a chassidic yeshivah for several years on the east coast. The learning schedule was rigorous. It began at seven in the morning and ended at nine thirty at night with a total of ninety minutes for prayers, and ninety minutes for meal times.

 

Those of us who were inspired to would often continue learning in small groups until midnight. This schedule ran sunday through thursday, with friday's learning ending two hours before the Sabbath. On the Sabbath learning was optional, but not doing it (the traditional Sabbath nap) was heavily frowned upon. Several of us dedicated the Sabbath afternoon to the study Bereishit Rabbah, a Midrash, which is a work of allegorical rabbinic teachings based on scriptural text dealing with the Book of Genesis (circa 100 CE) and related Chassidic discourses.

 

In my yeshivah I had a reputation. I was tough minded, not given to peer pressure, and five or six years older than my fellow students. I had not always been Jewish, I had been with women, I had been in situations, violent and otherwise, that your average frum boy wouldn't be able to comprehend. I didn't wear the cookie cutter chassidic garp (though I did wear a suit and fedora) and I tended to ask hard questions that made people shift restlessly in their seats. In fact I had a half hour set aside every day with my favorite rabbi to address those questions that were "taken offline" because they didn't want to discuss them with in earshot of the other bochurim.

 

In a chassidic yeshivah the outside world is frowned upon. You are not there to watch television, to read books, to go to movies, to surf the net, or to listen to secular music. You are there to be a Jew and to study Jewish things. So much so that there are rules, and bochurim who break the rules are asked to leave. There is very little, if any, tolerance.

 

One night every month I would close the book I was studying, stand up, and walk out of the evening seder an hour before it ended. I would go to my room, put on my coat, and walk into town. On this night I would go see a movie. It was an open secret. I didn't announce it, but everyone knew it. It was understood that I was somehow exempt. I was Gavriel Yehoshuah, the righteous convert, who had stood where the angels feared to tread. It was such an open secret that my favorite rabbi, in our QA sessions, would ask: "what did you see?" and after a short description: "can you make it Jewish?" Meaning, can you draw parallels to your learning, and can you apply it to a frum life?

 

One night the movie I saw was Instinct, which was based on the book Ishmael. The script for the movie, being whitewashed by hollywood, removed the religious references of the book. The allegory involving the Garden of Eden and Kayin and Hevel had been stripped out, as had the references to a pastoral leaver people, the semites. The next day, when the rabbi asked what I saw and what I'd made of it I made a number of parallels to the afternoon Shabbat seder I was a part of. To the midrashim and the chassidic discourses we were learning on the Book of Genesis. In specific, to the sections dealing with Kayin and Hevel.

 

That afternoon was the first, and last, time I ever asked for permission to do something I wanted to do. I told him I wanted to read Ishmael. It was an odd request. Me taking me out of the yeshivah only impacted me, but bringing a secular book that might have a questionable message into the Yeshivah? That was something else. That might affect someone else. It will sound odd to those who don't understand the chassidic way of life, but what I was proposing was patently dangerous. I was suprised when the Rabbi said yes. I was to read it after the days classes were done, in the office the rabbis shared, and I was to leave the book in his desk drawer.

 

So over the next week I read Ishmael. And I drew parallels. And parallels. And more parallels. You see, the Torah and Talmud have a strong undercurrent of natural law in them. They are not based on the premise that man rules the universe and that their laws are to be imposed on an imperfect creation, but that their rules are the rules of the universe, which must be imposed on an imperfect man - or rather, imposed on man whose mode of being is imperfect.

 

The midrash is allegory. The chassidut is the removal of the physical to reveal a spiritual truth. To produce a metaphor. The difference is suble, based on the process involved, but it does exist. Ishmael's take on the Garden of Eden is reflected in several chassidic discourses in the first section of Sefer Torah Or, which was produced by the first Lubavitcher Rebbe two centuries ago, and its discussion of Kayin and Hevel could have been a summary of the discussion surrounding those figures in Bereishit Rabba. The undercurrent of man's responsibility and relationship to the world is talmudic, which is the tribal law of a pastoral people (and as an aside, the talmud says some very positive things about pastoralism, and some very negative things about farmers).

 

So much so that when the author has the protagonist ask in wonder why biblical scholars have never made sense of it and proceeds to have the gorilla Ishmael deflect the question and say that he's not certain that no biblical scholar ever has he's being disingenious. I wont go as fat as to say he's being patently dishonest, but I have the distinct sense that he raided the kings treasury and didn't give the king credit for his wealth. It bothers me in a very real, very tangible way. And now I have to write a paper on it for a college class where its clearly intended to be moving and life altering (its not because I had learned its explanation of biblical passages before I ever read it) and I have no idea what to say.

 

Great.

[misterdeath]

So, we went out to dinner yesterday to celebrate my first paycheck at the higher pay level.

 

We went to Ruby Tuesdays (since it's the closest real restaurant to my house). It was amazing how many "low carb" items were on the menu. Mashed Cauliflower, BBQ pork crisps, high fiber wraps.

 

TGIFridays advertises their Atkins food plan, and they don't have anywhere near as many choices at Ruby Tuesday. They spent their money on the food, not the licence I guess.

 

D

[lemming]

How odd. I think I have spotted a weakness in the 30 second rule.

[Mightybec]

I can tie my shoes.

[Bazza]

A work colleague was organising an event and had to talk to the local Catholic Bishop, parahrasing the conversation:

Bishop: I can't say that, it is a lie...

Work colleague: Then go to mass of Sunday and forgive your sins...

[L. Marcus]

I have just worked for thirteen days without any leave. What do I do on my evenings? Relax in front of the boob tube? Read a good book? Take a long, relaxing walk?

 

Nope. I log onto these here boards and won't go to bed until two hours before I have to get up again.

 

I'm starting to believe that D-Man's Pull the Plug campaign may have something to it. . .

[BlackSword]

Sweet Granny Goodness, I made the mistake of trying to get into shape. I tried to an ab workout on the stability balls (those wonderful gifts of Darkseid) and it nearly killed me. I thought I was in pretty good shape, I thought wrong.

[Vondy]

my daughter is not a fan of binary equations.

[BlackSword]

Its a good day to be a Colts fan. Well, I caught the first quarter while driving, but I was busy gaming all day, so it was nice to return home, check the scoreboard and see that the Colts have made it the AFC championship game. Unfortunataly NE is going to be a tough team to beat. Here's to hoping the Colts the offense stays sharp and the defense holds off the Patriots.

 

Go Colts

[lemming]

Spent the afternoon at a seminar on dealing with a pet's death.

It was run by an animal communicator. I was skeptical before, but my wife used one when we were having some behaviour issues with our herd. During the communications back then, our cat Risque' supposedly said that Kimi should live in the basement with the other cat. My wife hadn't mentioned the cat we were fostering in the basement, but just the five we had. Hmmm.

So I went to this with Jenn just to see. We did do an excercise to try to contact a pet on the other side.

I wound up with three. Kimi who came by, but didn't want to deal with the other two.

Boris, a cat from the shelter, who had died recently without me being able to say goodbye.

The one I didn't expect was Mitzi. A siamese that was about a year old when I was born, and semi-raised me. Once kept me from taking a header off our second story porch by dragging me back. I was an infant at the time.

Could be subconsious working there.