Orwell

Here we are blown past the the very literary year of 1984, but in many ways closer to Orwell’s vision than makes me comfortable. I ran across this on Boing Boing this morning. The Orwell Prize will be publishing years of George Orwell’s diaries in a blog format, 1 post a day. This quote was mentioned in the announcement and struck me dumb for a second:

(on Charles Dickens) ‘He is laughing, with a touch of anger in his laughter, but no triumph, no malignity. It is the face of a man who is always fighting against something, but who fights in the open and is not frightened, the face of a man who is generously angry — in other words, of a nineteenth-century liberal, a free intelligence, a type hated with equal hatred by all the smelly little orthodoxies which are now contending for our souls.”

You can find the link at : The Orwell Diaries
The newsfeed (if that’s how you roll) at: The Orwell Diaries Feed

Fun With Chemistry

I remember sitting in my 10th grade chemistry class and my somewhat doddering and absent-minded chemistry teacher showing us the way potasium would react to water. Apparently he put too much in and blew up the beaker (there was a plexi glass sheild protecting the students), scattered shards of glass around the classroom, set our ears to ringing the rest of the day, and set the ceiling tiles on fire. That was my favorite day in that class ever (other than the time Neil got caught melting the plastic chairs with some tongs heated over a bunsen burner).

Check out these videos of potasium’s “friendlier” brother, sodium, being mixed with water.

Star Wars Photoshopped into Classic Art

http://www.worth1000.com/contest.asp?contest_id=20242&display=photoshop

Exercise Regimes

Here are two exercise regimes I wanted to remember. I’m pushing forward on my programs and I hit the weights for the first time seriously tonight. I love lifehacker.

100 Pushups in 6 weeks

From Couch to 5k

(edit: looks like the 100 pushups site is down…hopefully it will be back up soon)

Musings

I used to have the overly romantic idea that I was the Goddess’ muse. “Used” to as in up to this morning. Truth is, I never really thought about it that much. I got caught up in the concept because it relieved me of a lot of  personal responsibility. Was I being a good muse? Was I helping the Goddess? Muse..it’s a pretty word for my co-dependant behavior. A pretty idea for not living my life.

So now…the redirect.

muse

I was chatting with the Goddess this morning and said something equally corny along the lines of her being my muse too. Sheesh. Yes, I talk like that. Annoying isn’t it. So I was blathering along typically skipping along the surface of emotional content when she says simply: I am my own muse.

There you have it folks. I can remember a number of times during zen training my teacher saying. “Pretty simple isn’t it? And the hardest thing you will ever do.”

Pretty simple. Totally cool and life-changing difficult perspective shift. Wee.

Nesting Box

The Blue Planet from the Red One

This is a picture of planet earth taken from Mars. Re-read the previous sentence if you need to.

Starry Night Google Gadget

Stop looking at yer navel! Look up instead!

Marx Mashup?

This kind of thing is funny to me. What is your drug of choice?

Fan Boi

Ok…really…I rarely do this. But…

Yup. I’m a fan. In all honestly she reminds me a great deal of the Goddess so it makes sense.