NCC-1701 Pizza Cutter
Someone, I won't say who, told me recently that he reads everything of mine except the Star Trek posts.
I mean really! Young people these days!
~
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
For the nerd who has everything
NCC-1701 Pizza Cutter
Someone, I won't say who, told me recently that he reads everything of mine except the Star Trek posts.
I mean really! Young people these days!
~
Friday, May 27, 2011
Because it's Friday
and I seem to be in a black eye-liner sort of mood.
Here's another good one...
Man! that's some BIG hair!
~
Found the cake...
I've found the cake.
And there's a whole universe of (frankly gorgeous!) Goth wedding dresses out there. (In fact, I think there are wedding planners that specialise.)
Now, can someone please propose to me, so I can start getting my plans together for the perfect Addams Family wedding?
Luuu-Huuuuve this one!
Or, come to think of it, I could just start planning a Hallow'een party...
~
Meddlers
The EU, a pack of busybody, and extremely silly old ladies, bustling about telling everyone else what to do. They're like the little old ladies who have notions about how the world ought to be run, to save the precious dolphins because they're just so cute, but who have, for reasons inexplicable, been given the power to make everyone else implement their silly witterings.
Why is fish expensive?
Why is it expensive even if you live within a stone's throw of the sea?
Well, this is one of the reasons: EU fishing quotas policy results in fishermen dumping 90 per cent of their catch back into the sea. Yep. It's the rules, you see, because of errm...well, overfishing. Fishermen aren't allowed, under EU regulations, to sell all the fish they catch. But the fish don't know not to get caught in the nets that are only meant to catch the sort of fish the EU allows to be sold. This results in millions of pounds of the "wrong sort" of dead fish being thrown overboard every season, and it is close to bankrupting the British fishing industry.
Now, instead of addressing the problem, their ridiculous fishing quotas, the Eurocrats say they're going to "ban" the practice of dead fish dumping. Because, everyone knows, it's all the fishermen's fault.
It reminds me of the absurdities of the Canadian government saddling the Newfie fishermen with heavy quotas on cod fisheries. But the Newfs weren't the problem. It was the Spanish and Portuguese industry trawlers that came over the Atlantic and sat just outside (or as often as not inside) the 200 mile limit and fished the cod out. But of course, the Canadians were much too nice to do anything about that. We're so desperately proud of our unarmed coast guard and it's just so much easier to destroy the Newfoundland fisheries. After all, the guys out there in the little dories don't shoot back.
Hey, I've got an idea, let's dump the damned EU overboard, every man jack of 'em, and let 'em swim to shore.
~
Why is fish expensive?
Why is it expensive even if you live within a stone's throw of the sea?
Well, this is one of the reasons: EU fishing quotas policy results in fishermen dumping 90 per cent of their catch back into the sea. Yep. It's the rules, you see, because of errm...well, overfishing. Fishermen aren't allowed, under EU regulations, to sell all the fish they catch. But the fish don't know not to get caught in the nets that are only meant to catch the sort of fish the EU allows to be sold. This results in millions of pounds of the "wrong sort" of dead fish being thrown overboard every season, and it is close to bankrupting the British fishing industry.
Now, instead of addressing the problem, their ridiculous fishing quotas, the Eurocrats say they're going to "ban" the practice of dead fish dumping. Because, everyone knows, it's all the fishermen's fault.
It reminds me of the absurdities of the Canadian government saddling the Newfie fishermen with heavy quotas on cod fisheries. But the Newfs weren't the problem. It was the Spanish and Portuguese industry trawlers that came over the Atlantic and sat just outside (or as often as not inside) the 200 mile limit and fished the cod out. But of course, the Canadians were much too nice to do anything about that. We're so desperately proud of our unarmed coast guard and it's just so much easier to destroy the Newfoundland fisheries. After all, the guys out there in the little dories don't shoot back.
Hey, I've got an idea, let's dump the damned EU overboard, every man jack of 'em, and let 'em swim to shore.
~
Labyrinth
Sometimes, life in a foreign country can create labyrinthine difficulties for what would be the simplest procedures elsewhere.
Does anyone know the Italian for "sewing patterns" or "dress patterns"?
I am still more or less housebound, and am going out of my mind with boredom and I thought sewing might be a good time-filler that wouldn't be too physically strenuous. I need some new dresses for the summer and there's nothing in the shops that I can fit into. (Italian shopkeepers regard anything over a size 8 as XXL. It is flatly impossible to buy tights or stockings here that will make it up as far as my waist.)
The trouble is, that no matter how much news, political, medicine, cancer and reastaurant-related Italian I learn, none of it will be any use in a sewing shop.
I once was given the task for the parish of going to a sewing shop and obtaining iron-on pellon. I went to the shop and realised I was utterly at a loss. I spent 20 minutes in that tiny shop looking desperately around, unable to articulate to the shop people what I wanted, before I stumbled upon a packet of fusible interfacing, which more or less served.
Very specialised Italian is a bit of a problem for which dictionaries are useless. And I noticed that, as with most Italian shops, they don't mix the categories in the sewing world.
There's no such thing as "convenience shopping" in this country, and the boundaries between the types of things sold in different sorts of shops are very strictly maintained. It took me ages to figure out that although larger supermarkets will often sell barbeque briquettes and even the white firestarter stuff, they under no circumstances will sell you matches. Matches are sold only at tabacchi.
If you want to buy magazines, go to a newsagent. If you want to buy a packet of crisps and a soda, go to a grocery shop. If you want to buy shampoo and cosmetics, go to a profumeria. If you want to buy bandaids and mercurochrome, or fill a prescription, you have to to to a farmacia. The idea of combining these totally and rigidly separated categories of things into one shop and calling it a "drug store" or a "chemist" as we do in N. America and Britain, would be completely unfathomable to them. So, shopping involves a bit of skill in guessing, from what you know of the Italian mind, what sort of shop would sell the thing you want.
In addition, many of the shops you go to are the old fashioned kind, where the things you need are behind the counter and you have to ask the shop person to give you what you want. I'm sure this has to do with the Italian people-orientation. Italians, no doubt, consider our sort of shopping, where you just roam freely around the shop picking things up as you find them, intolerably impersonal and cold. Where's the human element? I can hear them saying. Well, yes, and I appreciate very much the lovely old-fashionedness of the ladies shops where you go up to the counter and ask the ladies there for your underthings. But it falls down as a system for us ferners when we get in there and realise there is simply NO WAY to describe the thing we want.
I went to that sewing shop in the Jewish section, which we would refer to as a "notions" shop, that sold all sorts of wonderful gadget-y sewing things (men, picture a 19th century hardware/fishing supply store and you will get an idea of the heart's little skip of delight and fascination involved for girls) and realised that neither they nor the fabric shop I had just been to sold dress patterns.
Now, I'm not such a clod that I can't draft my own patterns and come up with the clothes I want, but it does eliminate a step or two if you can start with a basic dress pattern in one's own size. But I have no idea where to get one, what Italian category of shop they might fall under.
For heaven's sake! If not fabric or notions, then what? What?!.
~
Does anyone know the Italian for "sewing patterns" or "dress patterns"?
I am still more or less housebound, and am going out of my mind with boredom and I thought sewing might be a good time-filler that wouldn't be too physically strenuous. I need some new dresses for the summer and there's nothing in the shops that I can fit into. (Italian shopkeepers regard anything over a size 8 as XXL. It is flatly impossible to buy tights or stockings here that will make it up as far as my waist.)
The trouble is, that no matter how much news, political, medicine, cancer and reastaurant-related Italian I learn, none of it will be any use in a sewing shop.
I once was given the task for the parish of going to a sewing shop and obtaining iron-on pellon. I went to the shop and realised I was utterly at a loss. I spent 20 minutes in that tiny shop looking desperately around, unable to articulate to the shop people what I wanted, before I stumbled upon a packet of fusible interfacing, which more or less served.
Very specialised Italian is a bit of a problem for which dictionaries are useless. And I noticed that, as with most Italian shops, they don't mix the categories in the sewing world.
There's no such thing as "convenience shopping" in this country, and the boundaries between the types of things sold in different sorts of shops are very strictly maintained. It took me ages to figure out that although larger supermarkets will often sell barbeque briquettes and even the white firestarter stuff, they under no circumstances will sell you matches. Matches are sold only at tabacchi.
If you want to buy magazines, go to a newsagent. If you want to buy a packet of crisps and a soda, go to a grocery shop. If you want to buy shampoo and cosmetics, go to a profumeria. If you want to buy bandaids and mercurochrome, or fill a prescription, you have to to to a farmacia. The idea of combining these totally and rigidly separated categories of things into one shop and calling it a "drug store" or a "chemist" as we do in N. America and Britain, would be completely unfathomable to them. So, shopping involves a bit of skill in guessing, from what you know of the Italian mind, what sort of shop would sell the thing you want.
In addition, many of the shops you go to are the old fashioned kind, where the things you need are behind the counter and you have to ask the shop person to give you what you want. I'm sure this has to do with the Italian people-orientation. Italians, no doubt, consider our sort of shopping, where you just roam freely around the shop picking things up as you find them, intolerably impersonal and cold. Where's the human element? I can hear them saying. Well, yes, and I appreciate very much the lovely old-fashionedness of the ladies shops where you go up to the counter and ask the ladies there for your underthings. But it falls down as a system for us ferners when we get in there and realise there is simply NO WAY to describe the thing we want.
I went to that sewing shop in the Jewish section, which we would refer to as a "notions" shop, that sold all sorts of wonderful gadget-y sewing things (men, picture a 19th century hardware/fishing supply store and you will get an idea of the heart's little skip of delight and fascination involved for girls) and realised that neither they nor the fabric shop I had just been to sold dress patterns.
Now, I'm not such a clod that I can't draft my own patterns and come up with the clothes I want, but it does eliminate a step or two if you can start with a basic dress pattern in one's own size. But I have no idea where to get one, what Italian category of shop they might fall under.
For heaven's sake! If not fabric or notions, then what? What?!.
~
Thursday, May 26, 2011
I'll let St. Philip get today's last word
From the Daily Philip:
"Let us strive after purity of heart, for the Holy Spirit dwells in candid and simple minds."
~
Repost: 23 Things I Don't Care About
This is from a few years ago, when a fellow-blogger put up a meme asking people to tell everyone 30 "things that don't bother you".
~
I like memes. It's like Sharing, only less socially awkward. A few months ago, I was having a chat with Paul Tuns, the edior of the Interim, the "last conservative paper in Canada" (according to Conrad Black), and he (Paul, not Conrad) was telling me that he and Kathy Shaidle were doing a Ten Things I Don't Care About meme. I thought it was a cute idea and started a list of my own.
Strangely, I fizzled on it.
It's because, well... it's hard to think of stuff you don't really care about, because you don't really think much about things you don't think about...if you know what I mean.
Anyway, I told Jeff that thirty's a lot, especially for someone like me who's known to be a bit highly charged about quite a few things, but I'll have a go. (Some of these are a bit Canadian, so bear with, if you don't live above the 49th.)
Things that don't really bother me:
1. The Vocations Crisis - there isn't one.
2. Canada - see note above re: vocations crisis.
3. Global Warming - warmer winters? longer summers? sounds pretty good to a Canuckistani.
4. Women's Rights - actually I do care about this, it's just that I think we should have fewer of them.
5. Canadian Politics - tough to care about the politics of something that doesn't really exist.
6. The Canadian Catholic Church - as note one above.
7. Liturgical Abuses in the Novus Ordo - Can't corrupt something that is itself a corruption.
8. Genetically Modified Foods - humans have been genetically modifying the food they grow for ten thousand years. Too late to worry about it now.
9. The Sex Abuse Scandal - fags do what fags do; if you put a bunch of yippity-skip nancy-boys in the Church, that's what they will do.
10. The Environment - nature is stronger than us. Oxford says: "Environment, n. Surrounding; surrounding objects, region, or circumstances." sounds like the sort of thing that will be there no matter what.
11. Islam - it's a false religion. Truth always wins...in the end.
12. Racism - it's been with us a long time; not going away soon.
13. the Role of the Laity - pay, pray and obey gives us plenty to do.
14. the Modern Dissolution of the Religious Orders - no point saving a house that's already riddled with termites. The sooner it goes down, the less threat it poses to the neighbourhood. With the anti-nuns: the sooner they die off, the sooner we get their stuff.
15. the Motu Proprio - if it comes before the Parousia, we're ahead, I figure. [HJW: Yayayayayayaaaaayyyyy...which is the only liturgical comment I feel qualified to make]
16. University Dropouts - a sign of mental health if you ask me.
17. Catholics who don't want to move and shake - also disparagingly called 'pew-sitters.' We need more non-activist Catholics. People got enough to think about without obsessing over encyclicals.
18. Ladies who don't want to work/go into politics - Kittens and embroidery, as well as gardening, homeschooling, sewing, pie-making, and watercolour landscape painting are all under-represented in the unpaid labour market.
19. Modern "Art" - the only people who pay for it are corporations and it is only seen in art galleries that only stupid people go to. What's the loss? Beauty is like truth and nature; they're stronger than our stupidity and tend to make comebacks.
20. Gay Rights/Feminism/Demographic Implosion - a problem that is naturally taking care of itself without me having to lift a finger.
21. The Pandas - (or cute endangered species of your choice)- people don't want to save the pandas; they want to keep feeling the Cuteness Thrill and worry they will lose it when the cute animals go away. Plenty of cute furry animals around to trigger the response. Besides, any animal that refuses to reproduce and only eats one kind of food deserves to get voted off the genetic island.
22. The Coming Persecution of the Last of the Faithful Catholics - can't think of an easier way to go to heaven than at the point of a commie rifle. cf. Miguel Pro.
23. Anglicanism - I write a lot about the 'coming Anglican schism'. It almost always makes me giggle.
~
A blast from the past
I don't know how much of my parents' money went into the Asteroids game at Knott's Berry Farm in the summer of 1980, but it was not enough, by any means.
I'd recommend caution, however. I think it's easy to damage your space bar and direction keys on your keyboard
with this.
I was reminded of it the other day when I was walking, or attempting to walk down a narrow, crowded street in Rome. It suddenly dawned on me what it is like. It's like playing Asteroids.
~
Two important public service videos
The money isn't the reason I love the monarchy. But it's a nice side benefit.
Also,
Go Imperial.
~
Andrea J. Smith
I have no idea if Andrea is the best teacher of classical realist drawing and painting in the world, not having studied with all the teachers in the world.
But I'm fairly convinced she is the best one for me.
If you live in Rome, or even if you are staying only for a few days, you can study with her too. She gives short little speeded up courses in the sight-size drawing method for people who are only here a short time.
One of the things I admire most about her is her fearlessness.
She drove a 50cc Honda motorbike, named, of course, "Hanibal," over the Alps. Not making it up.
In the last couple of weeks, she's been in France teaching a plein air workshop in landscape painting,
and I'm insanely jealous.
Where was I?
Oh yeah. Having surgery.
Booo...
~
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