Tea and Crumpets

"The World's First Industrialised Ghetto" - shameless

I'm always (well usually) trying to find the balance...

between negative and positive.

Melancholy and Joy.

Success versus Anger.

Resentment against Contentment.

Happiness without Fear.

Anxiety tinged Euphoria.

Etc...

You can't completely have one without the other.

As life is a vivid mixture of the good and the shit.

Never completely wonderful if you look too far,

but not ever as depressing as brains can think.

Anything can be dealt with, it can just take time.

Nature kills without conscience, but that doesn't mean we should.

So what if we have done since the beginning of time...

I'm sure at least some of those were needed.

But we can change can't we?

Rationality away!

Choose 'Life'?

It might not be sunny, but I'm sure there's warmth somewhere...

They may not listen to you, but someone out there will...

sometimes just one more day is all it takes...

hold on for the next big adventure!

Next time I might try to be funny again or I might just try to be really deep and pretentious, so that I can alienate the mainstream. I seem to have writer's block, but it's only blocking the good stuff from coming out, so this is what you're left with. I love my life really, because I have made some good choices and been lucky. But I did make a few bad choices first that helped me learn and had to deal with some bad luck along the road. Blah blah blah, morals.

Hope you're well!

The Saturn Return

Curse of the 27 club...

" "Turning thirty is a big deal. Many experience the last years of their twenties as a transitional phase between youth and maturity. Thirty marks the real entry to adulthood—an age where most people have completed their university degrees, found their vocation, and are comfortably settled in a relationship—or not.

It takes the planet Saturn twenty-nine and a half years to return to the same position it occupied at the time we were born, a significant event as it marks the end of one cycle and the beginning of another.

Astrologers argue that Saturn Return is one of life’s most important thresholds as it intensifies one’s feelings of sadness, isolation, and purpose. In the words of Rob Hand, author of Planets In Transit, it’s “a time of endings and new beginnings,” a fitting characteristic for Saturnus, the Roman harvest god, the model for the grim reaper." "

http://www.the27club.net/saturn-return-27

Debt Crisis Sandwich

Things I thought or heard while watching the news one night...

Horrific crash, torrential deluge

Greek Tragedy, widespread panic

Record-breaking weather, anarchy

Bitter-sweet catastrophe, riots beaten

Negotiations deadlocked, scapegoat found

Space shuttles retire, adventure over

Ending the dreams of a generation

Barely visible in the dawn darkness

Milk prices sour, debris strewn

Just a few stories manipulating fear to get your attention. The "You just got infected with a virus and we'll give you the recipe for the antidote, plus a quick summary of the meaning of existence! AND the best way YOU can enjoy it! All coming up after some brief words (and imperative directions) from our generous corporate overlords, I mean sponsors..." scenario. Typical. All promises to be fulfilled, once credit card details verified.

By the way... (Security Warning:)

Have you noticed? (I'm guessing it's worldwide?) the increasing number of scams, (phishing or otherwise) going down everywhere? All the time I hear about fake emails (& phone calls, etc...) going out that can look/sound semi-legit and seem to sucker in the (possibly temporarily) gullible peeps to give their personal deets over,

bad news... funds transferred, game over. You lose.

Other bad news:

• that's not Microsoft ringing on the phone offering to fix a mystery "virus' on your computer for only $200.
• that Nigerian Prince won't pay you $3 million dollars if you send him a small amount of cash now.
• there is no expedition to find sunken treasure in the ocean that just needs your small investment to fund the expedition.
• you haven't suddenly got a tax refund for a business you don't actually have.
• giving credit card or personal details to anyone you don't trust or know is completely https-type trustworthy, can be really regretful
• the person you met online and wants you to bring a suitcase to another country, could be using you as a drug-mule.
• there is no such thing as a free lunch*
• official looking fake emails/websites/letterheads are easy to create.
• urban myths and rip-offs are common.

pretty much never trust an unsecured email or cold call, from a bank, Govt. dept or any other large institution, that ask you for details or promise you something, it could be a scam. Big business and Govt.. departments are usually careful enough to only contact you securely through online log-in or some verification mechanism, as they know how easy fraud is...

so don't get credit card or identity frauded people!!!

But the great irony (and conceit from me) is that if you reading this, than I guess your already smart enough to know all that stuff.

Better safe than sorry though, overkill rather than under kill isn't it?

Add your own safety warning/scam below as a comment if you wish!

*conditions apply.

_______________________________________________

“What is a cynic?

A man who knows the price of everything

and the value of nothing.” -- Oscar Wilde

--------------------------------------------------------------------

World of the News

The Truth is Lies

Lies are Commercial

Everyone has an Angle

Some better than Others

More rhetorical questions:

(I think I know the answer to one of these, due to a sociology lecture...)

• Is it possible to be Objective?
• What's the opposite of Homesick?
• What's the difference between 'sex' and 'gender'?
• Can Stress Be Controlled? (without meditation or medication)

Just got back from a bit of a road trip down south and noticed...

Macrocarpa can be used for/as makeshift:

hedges, windbreaks, perimeter markers

fences, barriers, great green walls

trees with tunnels, forts

Exit Cellar door

Schadenfreude in Your Face

Random intangibles of recent time:

I wanted to write a short story but haven't got round to it yet, may do that soon as I have a (road/ferry) trip coming up. Watched 'Bad Boy Bubby' again tonight, a very interesting movie indeed. I had forgot some stuff in it...

So I did another pic with paint again, is it a montage or a collage?

juxtaposition or partial superimposition?

by the way... (other misc. thoughts, loosely in the form of questions)

• When did the role of media change from reporting the facts to scandalising them? Distorting the to add excitement and intrigue, for no good reason...
• What would the history channel show if it wasn't for world war II?
• What were the eighties thinking? I mean really, the hair, etc....
• Ever noticed that Rupert Murdoch looks like Mr burns with glasses?
• Where is the next big thing hiding right now?
• Whatcha' doing?

Disfluency

Arial

Roman

times new

cognition

education

recognition

reeducation

comic sans italicised

easier is better?

complex is more substantial

certain types of difficulty can actually be beneficial

disfluency could improve learning

from rnz:

making something harder to read helps you remember more information

making things harder to read makes you remember more of the information.

So giving someone a textbook to read in a subtly unusual font will help learning.

It sounds a bit wacky

but it's been trialled in schools

and is an idea

that's being taken seriously.

Foreign Accent Syndrome

Seriously...

A 67 year-old woman of Blenheim who has never left New Zealand, has developed a rare condition after suffering a stroke in 2008. She now speaks with either Irish, Scottish or American accents randomly all of the time, due to the affect on the left side of the brain, which controls language.

Odd.

(quote)

"The impression of an accent is conveyed by the cluster of speech characteristics a person exhibits, such as prolonged vowels and alterations to speech rhythm patterns."

(unquote)

Q: When does an accent/colloquial phrases become a dialect?

NB: Rhythm is quite a weird word if you look at it, only a 'y' for a vowel in the first syllable (which ain't too rare), but definitely nothing but consonants in the second.

Hybrid Cloud

Personally...

I would have to say this one is a bit too busy for me, but I'm allowed to say that...

as I ripped it kicking and screaming onto the virtual world of accessible visual space...

that we have in here in the land of spam, hype, diversion, propaganda, promotion, etc...

not really something that you could handle having on your desktop, but so what eh?

I was trying to download paint shop or something new free... it didn't work,

so instead I stupidly played around with paint, that's right paint... :(

and decided to put that up here to share the pain with all of you,

by virtue of you clicking something somewhere

that brought you here, either intentionally...

or otherwise by blind co-incidence,

ohhhh! the laughs we had...

and by 'we' I mean me.

Enjoy it! or don't

don't look

filler

and now! without further adieu (or more precisely rambling about blah blah and drawing this post out slightly longer tha intended...) a picture/mess/digital image/creation/cop-out

copyright infringement/nonsense/a piece of.../palava/sight gag...

Sorry, wanted to offend your eyes :)

No Free Bees

Make Something From Nothing

oBey...

-Be lively...

-Bet little...

-Beat liars...

-Beaut listeners...

-Beauty lecturers...

-Beautify life...

-Beautiful Losers

"The greatest cultural accomplishments in history have never been the result of the brainstorms of marketing men, corporate focus groups, or any homogenized methods; they have always happened organically."