Dracula (1979)
I notice that China is blaming Tibet for the 
Chinese occupation, the problems and specifically the "Dalaï Clique" for the recent uprising. That's right, when desperate, blame the victim. China has now occupied Tibet for 60 years, crushing dissent, violating human rights, killing Tibetans and denying them their religion, their customs and their heritage, and it is all Tibet's fault! I can only hope that this blossoms into giant egg-drop soup on China's face. Of course they want the Olympics to happen without a hitch, how better to give a gloss of legitimacy to a regime that is still one of the most repressive on Earth? One can only hope that if the situation persists, and it will, that the movement to boycott the Beijing Olympics gathers momentum and eventually darkens their showpiece moment beyond hope of redemption. I cannot claim purity for ANY of the nations participating in the Olympic farce, as nations are simply collections of human beings and thus as deeply defective and internally torn between good and evil, strife and peace, greed and generosity, hubris and humility as is any collection of human beings. But there IS a barometer of so-called civilized behavior that China fails miserably (along with several prominent Western nations as well). I support Tibetan freedom and autonomy and were I there, I would be working for change as well, weak though my efforts might be. If you are reading this and agree, please visit any of the numerous petitions online and give your support to the Tibetan people. Thank you.
Heather Mills gets about $50 million from Sir Paul McCartney in their divorce (a fraction of what
she was demanding) and is not completely satisified. Wow, what a surprise (yawn). The hysterical and bipolar woman hits, reproduces and runs, hoping to walk with a bag of ill-gotten goods in a manoeuvre that is as old as Time and as honorable as her (and the world's oldest) profession. The real loser here is the child, a 4 yr old girl who is the pawn of her mother's finagling. By no means am I a Paul fan, but it can be said that he conducted himself with a great deal more grace during this circus than she, with her media campaign and tediously staged "poor me! poor me! I need hundreds of millions to continue to live the lifestyle to which I so quickly became accustomed!" Had I been the judge, I would have given custody to Paul and granted £1 million to Heather specifically to found a prosthetics foundation for handicapped hookers; luckily for her I was not the judge. Here's hoping that the next time Paul opts for the "pay for play" choice on his gameboard, he uses better judgement.
Perhaps Ms Mills should move to Prague. Prague has long
been known as the most "magical" city in Central Europe - "magical" meaning that is has enjoyed a reputation as a center for vampirism, necromancy, witchcraft, sorcery, alchemy and other arcane arts and practices for seven centuries. There are stories of ghosts galore and armies of the dead, as well. Throughout the CE (Christian Era), Prague has always been where you go if you want to lose your soul in pursuit of things that were never meant for you. Of course, in
our century that translates as Europe's thriving hub of the pornography industry - a mileu where Ms Mills would fit perfectly. One can only imagine the hit she could have starring in videos, the one-legged rich divorcée with a trainload of hunky, hung, underfed east european men/boys who perform amazing feats of legerdemain upon her curiously bendable form. Or perhaps she could use her divorce settlement to buy enormous amounts of lead, ship them to Prague and finance continuing alchemical research to turn it all into gold. Alchemy, of course, was never really about turning base metals into gold, that was a metaphor for refining 
the base nature of man into the divine by means of the crucible of esoteric knowledge. Nevertheless, she could give it a try while at the same time picking up some spending money in the "film" industry. I have never visited Prague but would like to do so. Prague and Istanbul, a little round-robin trip to see two cities that I very much want to discover but for which I have not yet had the chance. Let me take a moment to check Expedia© for the price of an air ticket, and SNCF© for the price of a train ticket, hold on . . . okay, the information is in hand. I had to abandon the train search, as the complictions of using three different national train sites proved too time-consuming. So, by air, for the two of us to travel Montpellier -Prague (stay 6 days) - Istanbul (stay 6 days) - Montpellier would cost 4117.78 € or $6300.20 USD
(at current exchange rates) and that does not even include hotels, meals, tourist trips or shopping. So I believe we will not be doing that anytime soon. Unless, of course, we win the lottery, in which case "we're outta here!" Perhaps I could defray part of our expenses by selling bat-thorn once we are in Prague (bat-thorn is a fictitious plant used in vampire movies to ward off the bloodsuckers, better than garlic in its effectiveness). I could take along a couple of sacks of the local thorny garrigue-shrubbery as "bat-thorn". Needless to say, I will not be doing any wheelin' 'n dealin' in Istanbul at all, I saw the movie "Midnight Express" too, you know. Some colorful Turkish knicknacks and folkart will suffice, thank you.
Writing of arcane knowledge, I recently ran across downloads of old favorite comic books online.
They are available by the dozens; individual issues, collections, specials, all of them, easy to download, easy to view, and a simple way to time-trip into the past of one's youth and experience again the simple joy of young escapism into the impossible worlds of comicdom. My favorites as a boy were Dr. Strange, The Green Lantern, Batman and other "dark" heros, not for me Superman or the goody-two-shoes heros that were the idols of others - I wanted a soupçon of the dark and bizarre in my vividly-colored comic universe and searched it out. I had boxes and boxes of those things and later in life, learning that my mother had long ago thrown away "all that trash" that had become highly valuable indeed, I emitted a howl of rage and despair on my behalf and that of my bank account. Oh well, c'est la vie, n'est-ce pas? Later, I indulged in a quixotic crusade to track down and reassemble my Dr. Strange collection. It took me nearly two years but I succeeded, and they all reside now in sealed boxes in a hidden location far, far away from the howling hordes of Christian mothers who wish to purge the world of this "time-wasting crap." It is an amusing fact that no one collects their old mathematics texts, or their phonetics manuals, or other such ilk, yet old comics fetch thousands on the marketplace. Such is the world in which we live.
I was supposed to start a new project last week, learning Arabic. I was even going to learn Arabi
c with French as the referant language, but it did not happen. My "tutor" was to be Wicem, a Tunisian journalist who resides here in Montpellier and a "friend of the family." Well, not exactly a friend of the family, rather the husband of a friend of the family who herself was the "one-night friend" of another friend of the family (yes, a real one). At any rate, the couple (she's Polish-Jewish, he's Tunisian-something) have been to dinner here several times, have passed afternoon get-togethers here, etc. Wicem and I had spoken several times of my desire to learn Arabic, so he volunteered to begin my instruction. I never believed it was a matter of being paid to do so and he never mentioned that, it was all conducted along the lines of "friends help friends." Ha. As well, if I want to pay to learn Arabic there are many, many schools and learning centers available here in Montpellier to do exactly that. We had agreed on Wednesday as our tutoring date - no show. I thought perhaps I misunderstood, as Thursday had been mentioned, but no, he did not show on Thursday either. Now, of course, I will research other methods to learn Arabic, which are legion on the Internet, many of them free of charge. The difficulty is that doing it by 'Net, you lack the personal context and connection that help so much when learning another language, but too bad. I 
shall persevere. On a bizarre side-note, did you know that simply by adding a -t to a name/word in the ancient Egyptian language you transform it from the masculine to the feminine? I suppose that means that Bob is a woman's name if spelled Bobt, Dick becomes Dickt, and Rod becomes Rodt. Is Jane therefore a masculine name if one removes the -t from Janet? I think not.
Oh my stars, the morning is wearing on, my wife has departed for the market and I am still here working on this piece of blogfluff. I must pack the bat-thorn if we are to be ready for winning the lottery. Until the next,
Leducdor(t?)
Chinese occupation, the problems and specifically the "Dalaï Clique" for the recent uprising. That's right, when desperate, blame the victim. China has now occupied Tibet for 60 years, crushing dissent, violating human rights, killing Tibetans and denying them their religion, their customs and their heritage, and it is all Tibet's fault! I can only hope that this blossoms into giant egg-drop soup on China's face. Of course they want the Olympics to happen without a hitch, how better to give a gloss of legitimacy to a regime that is still one of the most repressive on Earth? One can only hope that if the situation persists, and it will, that the movement to boycott the Beijing Olympics gathers momentum and eventually darkens their showpiece moment beyond hope of redemption. I cannot claim purity for ANY of the nations participating in the Olympic farce, as nations are simply collections of human beings and thus as deeply defective and internally torn between good and evil, strife and peace, greed and generosity, hubris and humility as is any collection of human beings. But there IS a barometer of so-called civilized behavior that China fails miserably (along with several prominent Western nations as well). I support Tibetan freedom and autonomy and were I there, I would be working for change as well, weak though my efforts might be. If you are reading this and agree, please visit any of the numerous petitions online and give your support to the Tibetan people. Thank you.Heather Mills gets about $50 million from Sir Paul McCartney in their divorce (a fraction of what
she was demanding) and is not completely satisified. Wow, what a surprise (yawn). The hysterical and bipolar woman hits, reproduces and runs, hoping to walk with a bag of ill-gotten goods in a manoeuvre that is as old as Time and as honorable as her (and the world's oldest) profession. The real loser here is the child, a 4 yr old girl who is the pawn of her mother's finagling. By no means am I a Paul fan, but it can be said that he conducted himself with a great deal more grace during this circus than she, with her media campaign and tediously staged "poor me! poor me! I need hundreds of millions to continue to live the lifestyle to which I so quickly became accustomed!" Had I been the judge, I would have given custody to Paul and granted £1 million to Heather specifically to found a prosthetics foundation for handicapped hookers; luckily for her I was not the judge. Here's hoping that the next time Paul opts for the "pay for play" choice on his gameboard, he uses better judgement.Perhaps Ms Mills should move to Prague. Prague has long
been known as the most "magical" city in Central Europe - "magical" meaning that is has enjoyed a reputation as a center for vampirism, necromancy, witchcraft, sorcery, alchemy and other arcane arts and practices for seven centuries. There are stories of ghosts galore and armies of the dead, as well. Throughout the CE (Christian Era), Prague has always been where you go if you want to lose your soul in pursuit of things that were never meant for you. Of course, in
our century that translates as Europe's thriving hub of the pornography industry - a mileu where Ms Mills would fit perfectly. One can only imagine the hit she could have starring in videos, the one-legged rich divorcée with a trainload of hunky, hung, underfed east european men/boys who perform amazing feats of legerdemain upon her curiously bendable form. Or perhaps she could use her divorce settlement to buy enormous amounts of lead, ship them to Prague and finance continuing alchemical research to turn it all into gold. Alchemy, of course, was never really about turning base metals into gold, that was a metaphor for refining 
the base nature of man into the divine by means of the crucible of esoteric knowledge. Nevertheless, she could give it a try while at the same time picking up some spending money in the "film" industry. I have never visited Prague but would like to do so. Prague and Istanbul, a little round-robin trip to see two cities that I very much want to discover but for which I have not yet had the chance. Let me take a moment to check Expedia© for the price of an air ticket, and SNCF© for the price of a train ticket, hold on . . . okay, the information is in hand. I had to abandon the train search, as the complictions of using three different national train sites proved too time-consuming. So, by air, for the two of us to travel Montpellier -Prague (stay 6 days) - Istanbul (stay 6 days) - Montpellier would cost 4117.78 € or $6300.20 USD
(at current exchange rates) and that does not even include hotels, meals, tourist trips or shopping. So I believe we will not be doing that anytime soon. Unless, of course, we win the lottery, in which case "we're outta here!" Perhaps I could defray part of our expenses by selling bat-thorn once we are in Prague (bat-thorn is a fictitious plant used in vampire movies to ward off the bloodsuckers, better than garlic in its effectiveness). I could take along a couple of sacks of the local thorny garrigue-shrubbery as "bat-thorn". Needless to say, I will not be doing any wheelin' 'n dealin' in Istanbul at all, I saw the movie "Midnight Express" too, you know. Some colorful Turkish knicknacks and folkart will suffice, thank you.Writing of arcane knowledge, I recently ran across downloads of old favorite comic books online.
They are available by the dozens; individual issues, collections, specials, all of them, easy to download, easy to view, and a simple way to time-trip into the past of one's youth and experience again the simple joy of young escapism into the impossible worlds of comicdom. My favorites as a boy were Dr. Strange, The Green Lantern, Batman and other "dark" heros, not for me Superman or the goody-two-shoes heros that were the idols of others - I wanted a soupçon of the dark and bizarre in my vividly-colored comic universe and searched it out. I had boxes and boxes of those things and later in life, learning that my mother had long ago thrown away "all that trash" that had become highly valuable indeed, I emitted a howl of rage and despair on my behalf and that of my bank account. Oh well, c'est la vie, n'est-ce pas? Later, I indulged in a quixotic crusade to track down and reassemble my Dr. Strange collection. It took me nearly two years but I succeeded, and they all reside now in sealed boxes in a hidden location far, far away from the howling hordes of Christian mothers who wish to purge the world of this "time-wasting crap." It is an amusing fact that no one collects their old mathematics texts, or their phonetics manuals, or other such ilk, yet old comics fetch thousands on the marketplace. Such is the world in which we live.I was supposed to start a new project last week, learning Arabic. I was even going to learn Arabi
c with French as the referant language, but it did not happen. My "tutor" was to be Wicem, a Tunisian journalist who resides here in Montpellier and a "friend of the family." Well, not exactly a friend of the family, rather the husband of a friend of the family who herself was the "one-night friend" of another friend of the family (yes, a real one). At any rate, the couple (she's Polish-Jewish, he's Tunisian-something) have been to dinner here several times, have passed afternoon get-togethers here, etc. Wicem and I had spoken several times of my desire to learn Arabic, so he volunteered to begin my instruction. I never believed it was a matter of being paid to do so and he never mentioned that, it was all conducted along the lines of "friends help friends." Ha. As well, if I want to pay to learn Arabic there are many, many schools and learning centers available here in Montpellier to do exactly that. We had agreed on Wednesday as our tutoring date - no show. I thought perhaps I misunderstood, as Thursday had been mentioned, but no, he did not show on Thursday either. Now, of course, I will research other methods to learn Arabic, which are legion on the Internet, many of them free of charge. The difficulty is that doing it by 'Net, you lack the personal context and connection that help so much when learning another language, but too bad. I 
shall persevere. On a bizarre side-note, did you know that simply by adding a -t to a name/word in the ancient Egyptian language you transform it from the masculine to the feminine? I suppose that means that Bob is a woman's name if spelled Bobt, Dick becomes Dickt, and Rod becomes Rodt. Is Jane therefore a masculine name if one removes the -t from Janet? I think not.Oh my stars, the morning is wearing on, my wife has departed for the market and I am still here working on this piece of blogfluff. I must pack the bat-thorn if we are to be ready for winning the lottery. Until the next,
Leducdor(t?)
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1 comment:
Lol!
Nice ramble.
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