A Very Medical Christmas

This morning I bought a copy of the Independent, as yesterday it not only gave me a useful map of the Ukraine, but also a very good story about the Knights Templar.

The back page of the "Health" section has a wide variety of medically-related ads: anger management courses, "pick and mix" condoms, and an unpleasant-looking plastic gadget for toning-up vaginal muscles.

And then the thought occurred: is this a Christmas-related marketing push? Are there people who want to give someone an anger management course for the festive season? Do people exchange contraception under the Christmas tree? Will someone be unwrapping this on Christmas morning?:


Hmmm. Yesterday was geopolitics. Today it's pelvic-floor stimulation. Welcome to my world.

The Bear In Winter

So, here's a recap. The western part of the Ukraine speaks Ukrainian. The eastern part speaks Russian, and could therefore, if you were in the mood, be described as "ethnic Russians". These eastern areas are threatening to secede if the election result is overturned.

Meanwhile, the Russians are rather attached to the idea of the Ukraine being Russian, as Russia actually started out in the Ukraine nearly 1000 years ago. The Russian Black Sea Fleet is still based in the Ukraine. As are Russian nuclear weapons.

According to some reports, Putin has moved Spetznatz units to the Russian/Ukrainian border. According to other reports, some of those units have already arrived in Kiev.

I've got a bad feeling about this one.

Iconograffiti

Recently, on the internet forum which I frequent, someone posted this photo of a billboard somewhere in America:



Of course, the internet being the internet, it wasn't too long before someone got to work with Photoshop:

And You Will Know Us By Our Trail Of Geekiness

This won't really interest a lot of you, but I've written a review of the "Call of Cthulhu" supplement "Sacraments of Evil", which is online over at RPG.net. Those who want to see it can do so here.

Gabbleomancy

French-Canadian Bean Soup…I Want To Pay…Let them Leave Me Alone

- The last words of Dutch Shultz

As you may know, I regularly post messages to an interned forum. Recently I discovered that all my posts are archived. I copied the words and put them all together, giving a sort of William Burroughs-lite effect. The results can be seen over at N.A.O.W.F.I.T..

Second Language Fun

The following occurred at a party on the 2nd November 2004. Vast quantities of alcohol had been consumed, partly in an attempt to avoid coverage of the US elections.

I’m talking to one of my housemates, and she mentions that I eat a fairly unhealthy diet. I admit that it’s true, and point out that, like her boyfriend, I would probably eat much better if I had a girlfriend to badger me about it.

“You don’t have a girlfriend?” she says.

“No” I reply.

“When did you last have a girlfriend?” she asks.

“Well, never really” I say.

“It’s probably your personality” she says.

Oh that’s nice…

And this is the joy of having conversations with people in their second language.

Till Human Voices Wake Us

''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''

- Anonymous Senior Bush Administration Adviser, interviewed for the New York Times, 16 October 2004.

Give me World War III

we can live again

you didn't fool me

but I fooled you

- The Sex Pistols, "Wanna Be Me"