Hey you guys who like Steampunky things, have you looked at this?
http://tackorama.net/Fonts/steampunk/1.htm

I haven't poked around at the other sections than the fonts, so who knows what all is there.

English language, this word you have concocted is useless and you should be ashamed of yourself for creating it.

Discursive
1. passing aimlessly from one subject to another; digressive; rambling.
2. proceeding by reasoning or argument rather than intuition.

Those definitions are radically different from each other and will change the tone or meaning of the entire sentence! Without much of a cue in context to tell me which one is the correct definition to apply! WTF?

"Post-modern form of critique assumes that the social order is a discursive act." Do you mean it is digressive and rambling, or that it proceeds by reasoning? The context of the text around this paragraph is dense and not immensely helpful in figuring out what the point is exactly, but I've always been under the impression that modern form of critique would suggest that the social order proceeds by reasoning or argument (since modernism was really into all that), so do I then assume that posmodern of the same would be aimless and rambling? But then the next time discursive appears in the text it says "if beauty is a discursive practice, then existing norms/images are always legitimately subject to interpretation and critique." Which kinda suggests they want you to read it the second way...

Note, this is a rant, I don't actually want help trying to figure out this stupid text, I've disagreed with it since the start, and while it's been pretty cool as an incubator of thoughts, I'm really not into it at all. It's some old book on Google Books.

I'd like to point out that usually I love these words that mean its opposite at the same time, like 'cleave'. 'Cleave' is such a wonderful word. :3

So we had one day proper snow like January, next day was like March with stupidly icy and wet roads of death, and now it's all gone and we are back to November. And I had this flash of a vision of a wonderful future: what if that was as much winter as we get this year? :O That it was a fast-forward version of the season and now we are in it for the long haul with rain, wind and glorious miserableness; a true English winter...! If only! I know what I'm praying for now :3

In other news, I had breakfast and forgot that we're about to have dinner in half an hour >.<;; Need to do some Samoan stomach rolls or bust out the old sister missionary "can eat three meals in three hours" moves or something... (Dinner is really important to my mum so it can't be skipped without getting into a massive domestic... :/ )


Feels like time is slipping away from me (in many ways this is a great thing: go go away, year!) but I can't tell what it is that I'm doing with my waking hours.

We are having a white Halloween. What is up with that?? Although I fully realise that this is completely my fault, I haven't been praying that it wouldn't snow. But I didn't realise I would have to start doing that so early o.O It has never snowed before my birthday. So I hereby declare the beginning of Christmas, and all other holidays cancelled.

And yet: finished my route on time like a boss today :B

http://news.sky.com/story/1004857/disney-buys-lucasfilm-and-plans-new-star-wars
What what what? :O

The yew tree


Demetri

^{http://www.demetrimartin.com/}


Funny thing. I thought of this hilarious visual gag at work today, and then listened to some RadioLab where they played some of Demetri's stand up stuff, and I was like "amg, even his name is spelled perfectly for this silly idea I had earlier today! :O The universe is clearly into this joke!"

http://www.worldometers.info/
This has made me think of a lot of things, given some perspective.
I realise it's probably done on statistics and stuff, but when I see the number of suicides this year go up by one, I can't help but grieve for that one person who was so alone at this very moment, so much in pain that they did that - and I sat here watching.

Remember Planet Money's Fake Presidential Candidate that I talked about some time ago? He's alive now :D
http://www.npr.org/2012/10/17/163104599/planet-moneys-fake-presidential-candidate

"Don't vote with your wallet. Vote with sound economic principles. Vote for Planet Money's fake presidential candidate!"

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/09/copyright-and-campaign-misinformation-new-study-affirms-less-copyright
New Study Affirms Less Copyright Restrictions Benefit the Economy, Amid Renewed Calls for SOPA 2.0

"And, of course, now zombies are popular, the fanbase is snowballing with people latching onto popular mainstream shows like The Walking Dead. It’s going to continue to get more popular for a while as more of these shows and products release… right up until Stephenie Meyer releases Twilight of the Dead with glittery zombies and we all get put off."

XD

I'm back from my USA conquest campaign. I conquered four states (Indiana, Georgia, Utah and Washington) and one heart. That last one was an accident >_>

The short version is that I got engaged. To a young man I met in Georgia. It's pretty much one of those soulmate things. Like it almost got to this http://xkcd.com/310/ basically.

The long version is that Viking put me on a Greyhound headed south and 9 hours later at 2 am I fell off the bus at a truck stop in Dalton GA. Then I went to Waffle House with my friend and her friend. The next morning my friend went to work and her friend came over to keep me company. We had plans to go see an art thing and get hot dogs and stuff like that in case it got really awkward. It didn't. Instead we sat in my friend's house all day and just talked. For hours. And we did that again the next day. And I told him how awful it is that I like spending time with him better than I like spending time with my boyfriend. And on the evening of that day we got engaged. And then I changed my travel plans and stayed in Georgia for a week and told my friends in Provo that I wasn't coming to house with them after all, and only went to the mission reunion and General Conference in Utah.

Overall the entire trip went really well (really well) and everything was hurrah, except that on the flight home my suitcase didn't make the last connection, so it stayed in Amsterdam when I went to Finland. But they'll bring it to my house today some time. Which will be nice, because toothbrush >_>

Just like we learn from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog: Everything happens.

Homes:
Hamina, Finland
Coventry, England
Sundsvall, Sweden
Calhoun, GA, USA

>.< I did not need another home. Especially one that is uninhabitable for the most part of the year due to the heat.
But I'm glad nonetheless. :3

more free wifi, this time courtecy of the Greyhound company. I have an overflow of love and some fig newtons in my bag so I feel prepared for the 8 hours of sitting-on-the-bus ahead of me. Sounds like a Paul Simon song in the making...

One item on my 'todo in America' is complete: I got a fortune cookie. I am going to proceed to put undue empasis on it. It said 'you are a bundle of energy, always on the go' and it's true (put 'in bed' before the comma).

Next stop, Dalton, Georgia. The South.

it is almost 3 am and i'm on the Helsinki airport stealing free wifi (yes you can still steal if it's free, if you are very tired and having a very annoyingly hard time accessing et on your stuppid phone (i can't read my et messages on this thing, the browser crashes when I try, so the person who sent the message that seems to have the word theatre or theater in the beginning of the sentence, i'm sorry, i can't read the message right now and i can't even see who it's from before the browser crashes) in the middle of the night).

I'm on this airport because i'm coming and going. I've just come from England (leaving that country always leaves my heart in shreds ;_; ) and I'm about to begin the arduous trek towards the States. With mince pies in my bag :/ what are customs going to say about that?

In addition to not being able to read my messages, i also won't bother reading the forum, because it would be such a hassle to always have to check the previous posting in order to know what it was a reply to, and i just don't have the patience.

Despite leaving England being sad, I do have large amounts of happy that i got from there. Those people just love me so much and it is utter craziness that i live in a country that just doesn't love me as much. Operation moving back to coventry is go.

1)
Can a language indicate Utopia?

Suppose you had a language that had no future tense, because people lived in the now, and no one was anxiously worrying about the future.
Suppose you had a language that did not have a word like "have" indicating ownership, because all things were shared equally among all.
Suppose you had a language that used the same word for "he" and "she", because there was no difference between men and women and equality was a given.

This Utopia may (or it may not) be found in Finland.

2)
I have painted a wall. I painted it off-white (with an ever-so-slight tint to green). I really ought to be a person-who-paints-walls-for-a-living because the feeling of accomplishment you get from doing that and the way your body feels achy after such physical work are a very good feeling.

3)
I have barely began to pack for the upcoming travel event, which begins tomorrow at high noon and will end in the evening of the 14th of October. Srsl, what do you pack when you are going away for a month? X_x This is rather difficult. The plans however are more or less in place.

There was a post on my Facebook feed that said "where were you when you heard the news of Osama Bin Laden's death?"
And uhh, I have no idea, I can't remember. It didn't seem very momentous to me at the time: Americans have killed a person in Afghanistan or somewhere. That happens every day, doesn't it? Now if the news had been "Americans have arrested Osama Bin Laden and he is to be tried for the atrocious crimes he orchestrated in 2001" I would have sat up and listened carefully and followed the news closely. Same with Gadaffi: I can't remember where I was or what I was doing when the news of his death came. If it had been news of his arrest I would have danced on table tops or something and I would remember. I don't dance at the news of anyone's death. :/

Some days ago someone on Facebook said something like "yeah Kony, does anyone even remember him?" And I commented saying "we'll all remember him plenty when they drag his bee-hind from the jungle to the Hague" and a lot of people I don't know clicked like on that. But if instead of that we hear the distant news that Joseph Kony has been gunned down in some jungle shoot-out, we won't remember that moment. And it won't be a triumph for justice. Death isn't justice, since everyone is going to die sooner or later anyway. Dying because you have killed someone - even a lot of someone's - is not justice. If that were justice God could take care of that himself: "oh you just killed someone, well oops you just had a heart attack".

I must admit, it's possible we wouldn't remember the moment when Bin Laden was arrested either. It feels a little... offensive almost to ask the question. I was sitting here thinking of the different things that are usually the "do you remember where you were when..." questions: Kennedy's assassination, 9/11, the events at Norway... We don't remember the perpetrators, we remember the victims. I don't remember the moment when Breivik was apprehended, but I do remember the news of the attacks.

One thing that I think Amazon needs to figure out how to fix is the way it remembers everything you looked at, regardless of whether you expressed interest or preference to that thing. Not everything I view on Amazon is interesting to me, and for their system to assume that is pretty bad practice. It discourages browsing - especially browsing for gifts.

I'm going to throw up.

Nothing interesting happened at work today.

Instead: Nipplegate
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/cartoonists/2012/09/nipplegate-why-the-new-yorker-cartoon-department-is-about-to-be-banned-from-facebook.html

I had a curious experience at work today. I had to bike between a building and a parked lorry. And as I was getting closer I saw that I will fit just fine through the gap between the two, as long as the driver doesn't suddenly open the door. And I kept looking at the driver's door, knowing that he would open it, and ready to break if/when he did. And he did and I hit the breaks and stopped. The driver was startled and he said "hui" (means something like eek) and closed the door. I didn't say anything and just went past.

It just felt really weird, like in a play that you have rehearsed many times and you just know what is going to happen, what you will do then and what happens after that.

There is a long and very unsteep hill on which is a building with four different stairwells, A B C and D. It is one of my very unfavourite parts in my work route, they are just so monotonous and dull stairwells. When I got to the first one tomorning I noticed that there was a van parked at the last one. It's lights were very bright and I was rather cross at it for just standing there idling with its lights shining really badly in my eyes. I worked my way down over to it and upon approaching realised that it was an ambulance. The door to the last stairwell was left open, lights were on in the passage. I went in careful, ready to duck to the side if some busy-looking paramedics were going to come rushing down the stairs. The lights were on only up to the middle floor, on the top floor I could hear a person-noise, like crying or screaming, but not very loud. I went out and continued on my way. Upon looking back on the other side of the building I saw lights on in one of the apartments of the middle floor, a figure of a man taking a seat. I realised he probably saw me staring, so I went on my way, but my next stop was directly opposite so I could still see the windows and hear the crying, which I now realised was a child crying. I saw more movement in the window, looked away, and the next time I looked up the curtains had been drawn.

It was a very strange experience of passive-aggressive rejection. I wanted to explain to them: it's not that I'm morbidly curious, I'm concerned. I do realise it's none of my business and that timing is definitely wrong to start saying anything but... I wanted to reach out, to connect, somehow, somewhy.