Happy 90210!

Yes, I admit it. I did watch the first three series.
Bizarre to see how very eighties those early nineties outfits really looked.
Look at those trainer flap things sticking out from under those high waist bleached jeans!

*Mrs B hides all photos of her early teen years

Tending toward rest

My apologies for the light posting.
I was winding down after my exam period. Just got the results in today. My grades are even better than expected.
Double plus good! Quite chuffed with myself as usual.
On top of that I have a case of very bad tendinitus in the elbows. -s. Yes. That's right. Both of them. And I haven't been near a tennis racket since last summer.
The only thing tennis related I've been doing was watching Henin and Clijsters during the Australian Open.
It looks like I may have been doing a little bit too much of weight pulling at the gym. Bleh.
So typing is very painful at the moment. I've been saving all I have for my classes which started again today.

Great Spotted Foodpecker

An unexpected visitor in the garden. Not the most likely candidate to spot when hanging out food for the birds after snowfall.
Dendrocopos major, a female, enjoys a little peck. It is by far the biggest bird able to eat from the balls. Usually nothing bigger than Parus caeruleus, Passer domesticus, Erithacus rubecula or Parus major come and have a little nibble.
This female Great Spotted Woodpecker has been stalking the garden for a couple of weeks now and two days ago when Dr Livingstone and I were in the kitchen we saw two of them in Mr Moleslayer's walnut tree. They were too quick and nimble for me to discern if it was one of each sex.
I can hear them making those drumming sounds in the woods.

Not while running

I decided to get one of those digital voice recorders. A fellow student recorded a lecture and it was pretty good listening to that again right on the eve of my exam. Amazing how much you actually miss out on while taking notes.
Dr Livingstone ordered a cheap one (a steal at only 25€!) and it arrived this morning.
Because I always RTFM before using something I decided this was the best way forward in this case too.
So I cracked the box open. No paper manual. There was however an 80 mm disc in there. Stupid PC junk.
So Dr Livingstone resurrected some ancient Toshiba, copied the pfd for me and I started reading.

I scrolled down for the Dutch version. Me oh my.
It started out with a warning: 'Verwijder de batterij niet wanneer u aan het rennen bent.'
Loosly translated as: 'Do not remove the battery while you are running'

Here's what went on in my mind:

1) Bollocks. Bloody dyslexia. Let's read that again shall we?
2) Hey! Why would I be running with my voice recorder?
3) Let's back up a little more. Why would I be changing the batteries while running? In case I would like to record my own panting? In case I would transform into a journalist trying to catch a sound bite? And I hate running. I thought this thing was battery operated, not motion controlled.
4) Wait a second. There must be something wrong with the translation. Let's have a look at another language.
5) Right. Scroll down to Italian.
6) 'Durante l'esecuzione non estrarre la batteria'
7) That can't be right either. Why would I want to have a voice recorder with me at an execution?
8) Wait. Lolwut?
9) Let's try the English version.
10) Pom pom pom po pom. No, that's Magyar. Must be further down.
11) Ah. Here we are: 'While in use, don't remove the battery'.
12) Oh I see. Just a sidesplittingly funny translation.

There's a fresh lecture on tomorrow, I'll be able to test it and hear the quality. Hope it is better than the translation.

Only one possible answer

Are you...?

(only one possible answer)

0 Male
0 Female



Or should we have made a button for the doubdting Thomases?

0 Not Sure



(Taken from one of the online surveys I regularly fill out)

Happy Birthday Buzz!

A very happy birthday to Buzz Aldrin!
One of my favourite astronauts & advocator of science of all time.
And my personal hero for socking Bart Sibrel in the face!
Mr Aldrin: many many years to you and may you live to see the day man will walk on the moon (and Mars) again!

Exams

My lack of posting is due to those little things called exams. Only two more to go!
All went well up to now. Wednesday is a big one, I'll be taking an exam on the Art of the Renaissance. Which naturally includes Italian Art, but also the rest of Europe for a period spanning roughly 300 years and covering every discipline from Architecture to Statues to Paintings. I feel like a couple of Encyclopedia Britannicas.
I'm going to the gym now to let off some steam. And after lunch it's back to the books!

Borderline weather

In a kind of follow-up post to yesterday, I have hard hitting evidence even the weather does not cross the Flemish/Walloon border. Check out the cloud formation on the radar image from last night around twenty past nine. It's a severe case of borderline weather!

Zele is the new Brussels

So the director of Flanders Tourism in New York was reprimanded for omitting the Walloon part of Belgium on some kind of invitation. Instead it just said 'France'.
I don't understand what all the hubub is about. Americans know where France, Germany and Dutchistan are, but they've never heard of 'La Wallonie'.

They should have made trouble about the fact that Brussels was drawn in at the wrong point.
Brussels is now, so it seems, smack down right in the middle of Zele.
You won't have heard of it. Its only claim to fame is that a guy was born there who once was a goalie for the national football team. And then was shamed throughout the country (in the Northern part as well as the Southern part) when he was sent off the field during the Belgium - Turkey match with a red card because of a very clumsy move involving the bringing down of Arif. And all their substitute moves had been used up, so a regular footballer had to put on the goalie shirt. They lost by 2-0.

Anyway. Let me tell you about being struck off the map. If I want to see le météo for the Southern Part of Belgium on the site of RTL I get this message: 'Cette vidéo est malheureusement pas accessible pour votre territoire'.
So it just boils down to living on the wrong side of the rivers now does it? Fine. If you want your cake I'll make damn sure you'll bloody well eat it too.
I hope they get flooded or struck by locust plagues or something.

Hmm. Maybe that's too Jewish.

Blasphemy is an epithet bestowed by superstition upon common sense

“Blasphemy is an epithet bestowed by superstition upon common sense”
Robert Green Ingersoll (American Statesman and Orator, noted for his broad range of culture and his defense of atheism. 1833-1899)

Ireland has adopted an anachronistic blasphemy law, as part of the revision of the Defamation Act. From 1 January 2010, the new Irish blasphemy law becomes operational and the Irish Atheists have started a campaign to have it repealed.

Blasphemy is now a crime punishable by a €25,000 fine.
The new law defines blasphemy as publishing or uttering matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby intentionally causing outrage among a substantial number of adherents of that religion, with some defences permitted.

This new law is both silly and dangerous. It is silly because medieval religious laws have no place in a modern secular republic, where the criminal law should protect people and not ideas. And it is dangerous because it incentives religious outrage.

Everyone has a right to be treated justly, and a responsibility to treat other people justly. Blasphemy laws are unjust: they silence people in order to protect ideas. In a civilised society, people have a right to to express and to hear ideas about religion even if other people find those ideas to be outrageous.

And one of the most crucial points is this: Because atheism is not a religion, the Irish blasphemy law does not protect atheists from abusive and insulting statements about their fundamental beliefs. While atheists are not seeking such protection they do want to point out that it is discriminatory that this law does not hold all citizens equal.


I hope the Irish blasphemy law will be repealed as soon as possible for a rational, ethical, secular Ireland.

So before I set foot in lovely Ireland again, I must repeat the words by Matthias, son of Deuteronomy of Gath:
"Look, I had a lovely supper, and all I said to my wife was that piece of halibut was good enough for Jehovah.”


More information on the Irish blasphemy law and why it should be repealed: blasphemie.ie.
Also check out the list of 25 blasphemous quotes.