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Hope it heals soon

On 25/04/2016 at 4:27 PM, FatherAlabaster said:

Ah yeah, I understand, it's hard to know exactly how badly you've been hurt right afterward.

Plenty of time to check out new music, though... :)

Always look on the bright side I guess

In other news, i was listening to the radio earlier and they had this game where you had to try and combine the names of 80s pop artists and heavy metal. The best examples were probably S club Venom and Cilla Black Sabbath

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How much do Rabbits eat? I was sat in my hotel room earlier working and taking time to regularly peer out the window to take in the rather picturesque view and each time I did so there was this rabbit who was just eating grass for like 2 hours solid. Fair play to the furry bastard though, can't stand salad me self.

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2 hours ago, MacabreEternal said:

How much do Rabbits eat? I was sat in my hotel room earlier working and taking time to regularly peer out the window to take in the rather picturesque view and each time I did so there was this rabbit who was just eating grass for like 2 hours solid. Fair play to the furry bastard though, can't stand salad me self.

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I love a good salad, but the issue there is that greens just don't have many calories. For comparison, a male gorilla might eat up to 40 pounds of vegetation in a day, which is almost certainly the nutritional equivalent of some undefined number of rabbits.

One would expect that, as a practiced consumer of all living things, you would have a better sense of that, but I suppose being on top of the food chain has its drawbacks...

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Off to the Lakes at the weekend for an overnight break on Sunday as it is Bank Holiday weekend.  Already have found an Inn to occupy me for the evening, or I should say the gf found it and also booked us a table there.  She is planning on doing long walks and picturesque views along the way, depending on how well stocked that Inn is she may be doing that on her own.

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That sounds fun. I may get to go visit Boston with my wife in a couple weeks, for our anniversary, depending on how much music stuff I get done. She's got to go up anyway, sucks that it will be on our anniversary weekend but that's OK.

I'm in the middle of trying to write and record vocal parts for a friend's song, which unfortunately requires putting myself in a weird (and shitty) mood. And I always forget to eat when I record, so now I'm shaky. Ha! Music is the best. 

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14 hours ago, GorboGorboze said:

We spent basically one day no the mahal inDC. The Thomas Cole paintings that appear on a couple of the early Candlemass albums were the most metal thing I saw. We went to Montecello, that Jefferson, what was he thinking? Can you have consensual sex with an enslaved person of your sisters?

I doubt Jefferson was bothered about consent. I'm having trouble deciphering the first sentence. Is "mahal" the Mall? Anyway I hope you're having a fun trip. 

Did some temporary damage to my hearing and my vocal cords yesterday, but I think it was worth it, the song came out sounding good. Plenty of hot tea with turmeric and honey for me today. If JFK is lucky, I'll even bake another batch of cookies.

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Yeah, the museums... You should be glad to live in NYC. If you are between 9 and 12, your parents should get you to DC. The monuments have a purpose as well. If going to a museum gets you introduced to something that leads to your reading a book than that is to the good.

 

We went up to the Blue Ridge Parkway and cought a glimpse of the Smaokies today. We will be breasing through NYC on Sunday to visit my Aunty Oksana. That's midtown on the Isle of Mann-Hatt, as it is known to Thundar the Barbarian. Chelsea I believe. Some may recall a description of the Russian Orthodox funeral she arranged for my uncle who passed away last December.

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I love the museums, especially the Met, but I don't get out to them anywhere near enough. I need to set aside some time for a visit soon. Books have been a constant companion, though. I hope my son takes to reading. 

On my mind - re-watching The Return Of The King last night, I was struck by the essentialism in Gandalf's criticism of Denethor and the line of stewards, and his dismay that the leadership of Gondor had "fallen to lesser men". More than anything, I was disappointed that it hadn't bothered me before now. Even granting suspension of disbelief, and the fact that it is a fantasy novel written during a certain time period, it's shot through with unexamined acceptance of some sort of natural hierarchy, based on heredity - a divine right of kings that only the bad guys even attempt to subvert, because everybody else knows their place, and those who step out of line get squashed. A sweeping epic of maturation and triumph in the face of adversity, yes, but also a moralizing screed built on basic misconceptions about "natural kinds" and yearning for a lost "golden age".

I still love the stories, but now I have another reason to be happy I wasn't raised Catholic. 

 

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14 hours ago, FatherAlabaster said:

On my mind - re-watching The Return Of The King last night, I was struck by the essentialism in Gandalf's criticism of Denethor and the line of stewards, and his dismay that the leadership of Gondor had "fallen to lesser men".

I'm not so sure that this criticism was to do with natural hierarchy and inheritance. I think It was more a comment on Denethor's (and his line's) weakness when in positions of power. The family had a history of failing where other men may have prevailed. Boromir was almost destroyed by the ring (it would have torn the fellowship apart had it not already broken). Denethor became too power hungry and was blinded by his love for his first son. Even Faramir could be called weak, for he willingly threw his life away to please a man who, deep down, he knew he never could. I think the yearning for a lost age however, can be seen in a lot of Tolkien's work, for example, in some sections from (I think, don't quote me on this) the Lays of Beleriand.

14 hours ago, GorboGorboze said:

Interesting. I've not read the Silmarillian (nor do I know how to spell it), but from some commentary and overviews I've seen there seems to be a bit of racism as well, such as Dwarfs being somewhat sub-human/sub-elvin. Also women don't seem to count for mush in his world view, Galadrial being a noteworthy exception.

I'm not going to deny the racist undertones in some of his work, but I think that that was more a result of the ignorance of the times, as opposed to Tolkien's actual view. As for the Dwarven matter, I can understand where you're coming from, but I think it was more because the Dwarves were a dwindling folk, coming to the end of their time, and so they were often shown as weak or in some cases one could say feeble.  I think people confuse the Dwarves with the petty-dwarves, which were more akin to goblins than true dwarves, in a similar way to gremlins or imps in other fantasy works, and this is where the ideas about racism come from. In some of his poetry, the dwarves are akin to the elves and men (at their peak anyway), a powerful race, who built some of the greatest civilisations the world had seen. As for your point about women, there were some very important characters, some strong, some weak, but yes, most of the stories are mainly about men (as in males, not the race of men).

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15 minutes ago, jfk36 said:

I'm not so sure that this criticism was to do with natural hierarchy and inheritance.

Absolutely it was, or else why the insistence on Aragorn's right to rule as the true heir of Isildur? It's not like he had deep knowledge of Gondor, or executive experience. He was just born better. The whole idea of the race of Numenorean super-men being natural rulers, while others are naturally weaker, less intelligent and moral, and have shorter life spans, is essentialist. It's the same theme we see with the Elves in the Silmarillion - the ones who step out of line come to grief, live in exile, their descendants are "lesser". The issue with Denethor is just one example of that theme.  We can't chalk it all up to the particulars of his character. No doubt he had his fatal flaws, but he and Faramir were both shown in a better light in the book. It would be easy to argue that Faramir in particular would be best suited to rule Gondor, except that argument is never even considered, because of heredity and the natural order. In the internally consistent world of the book, that makes sense, but that's the very thing that started bugging me. I still love the books and the movies, I'm just looking at them a bit more critically. 

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Fair enough, now you've explained further I can see where you're coming from.

On another note, I have good news and bad news. The bad news is my ex just told me she has a borderline ovarian tumour. The good news is that it hasn't spread and she is having both removed next week. She has only just told me because she thought I might freak out.

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Saw a friend's band last night - really talented guy, and I'm happy he finally has a solid lineup. The drummer knows how to hit, the new guitarist can shred. They played a cover of Sepultura's "Desperate Cry" that was spot on, and I got to mosh with a few other people who were thankfully not large enough to hit me with enough force to fuck up my aging knees and back. I'm the youngest I'll ever be, yay!

17 minutes ago, jfk36 said:

Fair enough, now you've explained further I can see where you're coming from.

On another note, I have good news and bad news. The bad news is my ex just told me she has a borderline ovarian tumour. The good news is that it hasn't spread and she is having both removed next week. She has only just told me because she thought I might freak out.

Whoa, that's terrible news for her, I'm glad they caught it in time but still very sad. 

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16 minutes ago, FatherAlabaster said:

Whoa, that's terrible news for her, I'm glad they caught it in time but still very sad. 

I think more lucky than sad, it hasn't yet progressed to cancer, so once she's had them removed there should be no further issues, or at least there shouldn't be once her hormones have sorted themselves out.

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6 minutes ago, jfk36 said:

I think more lucky than sad, it hasn't yet progressed to cancer, so once she's had them removed there should be no further issues, or at least there shouldn't be once her hormones have sorted themselves out.

Sad that she won't be able to have kids if she wants to, at some point. That can definitely be hard on people. Best luck to her. 

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15 hours ago, jfk36 said:

Fair enough, now you've explained further I can see where you're coming from.

On another note, I have good news and bad news. The bad news is my ex just told me she has a borderline ovarian tumour. The good news is that it hasn't spread and she is having both removed next week. She has only just told me because she thought I might freak out.

Ouch, that quite sucks. Best of luck for her.

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