Meet the Porn Artist, ethologically-oriented (NEW)

The internet is a wonderful thing. Technology is a wonderful thing. Search engines are wonderful things. Site metres are wonderful things. Mine listed the most amazing referral. If you do a search on PORN using Technorati, I'm one of many possibilities:

505 posts matching PORN (last 7 days)
Query took 4.394 seconds.
Ranked by freshness

# 15 - WHICH SURPRISED HER.
5 Links from 5 Sources. Last updated 4 minutes ago.
Read Full Post — created 5 days 23 hours 26 minutes ago.

I'm a very fresh wannabe porn-starlet, who knew.

My kindest regards to the Unknown Searcher, IP address XXX.XXX.227#, CET, who, despite obviously NOT having got what he was looking for, bravely fought the good fight, viewed 2 (TWO!) pages and held on for 2 full minutes and 44 seconds! WELL DONE!

I am now conducting an ethological experiment.

STEP 1) Increasing blog's proception for porn fans - by introducing words such as: vagina, penis, testicles, scrotum, breasts, sperm, come, pussy, dick, tits (HUMANGOUS), sluts, wet and the old charmer anal. And maybe school girls and uniforms. Oh, also oh baby, yeah. And I'll finish - beautifully, if I say so myself - with an all-time favourite, oh baby you're sooo big!

STEP 2: Examining referral pages carefuly and performing a Chi2 analysis of results.

STEP 3: Posting results.

And to think people thought I was dumb just because I'm blonde! Would a brain-blonde be able to design such an elegant protocol? Would she? WOULD SHE? HA!

Funny thing, the only other referral I had - via Google - was from some Swede looking up "beheading + hostages + footage + Iraque". I'd written it the Portuguese way, it's now been corrected, as of now I reign brower-wise only through porn. I write a post re the hostages because I saw horrors I didn't want to see, this bloke is deliberately looking for them. I'll take porn any time.

UPDATE: This experiment has taken me to a very scary place. This is the one other referral:

Results #3 of about 34; 61.1.244.# (APNIC Pacific Rim); 15 secs; UTC+5:00 Russian Federation; Search Engine: yahoo; Search Words: rape photo for iraque girls

You Russian sicko, you BLOODY COWARD! This is how you get your kicks, you SCUM? That's kozyol in your own language, козёл - I wouldn't want you to not understand what I'm saying. If you ever find yourself in тюряга you will learn all there is to know about the joys of rape. You'd make someone a lovely prison wife. иди к черту! Вали отсюда! Пошёл ты!

Experiment over as of now.

UPDATE 2: I got two hits for "beheading+Iraque" with search.msn.com from 2 different people. What kind of a world have we that I'm relieved they're looking for this and not rape photos?

My soul has been raped.

I am listening to the gekko that rules us all say "I believe in freedom, I believe that freedom can change lives." WHO WRITES HIS SPEECHES??? The man is a complete idiot! THE MAN IS AN IDIOT!!! THE MAN IS A FLAWED STEPFORD ADVERTISEMENT! I LOATHE, I ABSOLUTELY LOATHE THIS ACEPHALUS WANKER! And I am bloody sure he will win again, God help us all.

Well.

I did something really mind-blowingly stupid. I found some site with news re kidnapping in Iraq. If you have a fragile constitution, now would be the time to stop reading. They had a photo I couldn't really understand so I clicked on the link because I thought there'd be some text too. Then I got distracted while waiting for it to download and that is why, again, I didn't immediatly realise what I was looking at. Then I froze in horror and by the time I snapped out of my trance and slammed the laptop shut it was far too late, I'd already seen too much.

It was the actual footage of the beheading of a hostage. I burst into tears and for a long while thought I would vomit. I will never be able to forget what I unwittingly saw and heard (the photo, incidentally, was of a headless body. With the angle, the bad resolution and my survival-enabling mind block, of course I couldn't understand it. Which is too bad because it would have spared me, if i had.). I will not even go into how obscene I think it is, and disrespectful for the dead and their families, and how dangerous to have that kind of link without a cautionary note where any kid can find it. I will not rant about the news fuckers that subject family and friends to such a vision from hell. As I said in an earlier post, I've learnt a lot about despicable, incomprehensible violence and that is all the more reason I do not want to learn anything further if I can help it. I will tell you one VERY graphic fact about it because I feel it is important that it is known. BE WARNED. I had heard on the news often enough that hostages were beheaded. To me, this presented an image of swiftness, some bottom-feeding rat with a long type of sword, in one fluid motion. Of course we don't know much about the persistence of actual sensibility in such a case but at least it was over in a second, I thought. AGAIN, now would be the time to stop reading.

Well, no. They are not beheaded. That is, they will eventually be beheaded in the sense that their body and head will at some point become separated. But what actually happens is - LAST WARNING - their throat is cut, or more accurately, sawed, back and forth motion, back and forth, back and forth. Skin, tendons, oesophagus, windpipe. Then the brave slaughterer steps aside and watches the hostage slowly die, writhing. I haven't read anything about it but I can tell you how the hostage finally dies. He drowns in his own blood, fully conscious. I know this because you can hear him wheezing and the blood is gushing and he's lying on his back, and his windpipe has been severed.Of course it all needs to be captured on camera. Of course the death must be a terrible one. A nice clean shot to the head would be too anti-climatic, not juicy enough. Not nearly enough pain. You wouldn't be able to fully appreciate how brave and saintly the kidnappers are (). If you want to know what motivates the killers, go here. It's not gory, no graphic details. Just the reasons for it. I found the link on this blog.

Just so you know. Just so you don't get so used to hearing about hostages dying because so many do that it stops mattering. Just so you remember they know they are going to die, and how. Just so you know there's nothing fast and peaceful about it. Just so you know how worthy the killers' cause is and what they aim to accomplish.

I'm against the death penalty but there are so many ways to die, wouldn't you say? So, if there is justice they will die a slow, agonising death too some day, hopefully soon. And more importantly, they will be made to know, before they actually die, that they are CONDEMNED. And they will be given plenty of time to think about it. And when they die, I hope there's a special place for an-humans like these, and, considering their religious believes, I hope they get to spend the rest of eternity (and they'll remember everything about their former life - for lack of a better word) eating pork and every time they open what passes for their mouths to protest, Hebrew will gush forth, in brachah form. And the huris? Forget about the huris, they will be gay American men, scarcely clad, a whole pride parade of them. And there shall be sex, gay sex, of course, loads of it AND THEY WILL ENJOY IT, oy vey, and the alcohol too. Oh, and because this is a place outside of the space-time continuum, every other 10 min of their non-lives they will experience the terror, the agony, the desperate hope for a miracle that every single one of their victims felt. And the grief of the people that loved them. AMPLIFIED. Obviously, the other 10 min will be consumed with the hope that this will have been the last time. But it won't have been, of course it won't have been, and this will go on forever and ever and ever, long after time and space cease to exist. AND I FEEL SO MUCH FUCKING BETTER NOW! I may feel guilty at some point about wishing them this but I sincerely don't think so. There's hope for me yet.

I have nothing against Islam itself or the koran. Sheik Munir in Lisbon went to the re-opening of one of Lisbon's two synagogues (a sheik is a religious leader). It gave me hope (the mosque is actually welcoming of strangers who feel curious, even if they don't share their faith). It's this sort of low-life cowardly fuckers' interpretation of the koran and Islam that causes my hairs to stand on end. Some day I'll post about why I agree with France forbidding female students to wear head scarves. I used to be naive and be for it. It's not the scarves, really. It's the mentality that comes with it AND THE REST. It's a package deal. And there's at least one Arab that agrees with me. It's a LAY country, motherfuckers. Check up the meaning of the word.
This is our world. I feel sick.

On the telly now: "The canonisation of the three little shepperds of Fátima is underway." You'd have to be Portuguese to understand this but ask me again why I so often feel not only ashamed of the world, but also of my very own country.

(I can tell you I miss the old days when there was not one political word to be found in my blog. Cabbages seem to have it so much easier. But I always seem to catch up with myself no matter what.)

The Cohanim at your service

I found a religious blog, created as an assistance to Bible class, Jesus our saviour. The Blogger's name is C. Cohen.

This is very funny. No it isn't. Yes it is. No it isn't. Yes it is. No it isn't.

?!?!?!!!!

Human Rights Detour (CAT STEVENS UPDATE)

Please open the blue links in this post, they are really worthy of attention. Before I go on I would like to apologise to a former lurker, Dale, who will now see whatever remains of his closet outed. But he said something that I really, really need to talk about. He wrote in a comment to my Open Letter post: I do think it odd that you're not troubled by a US citizen who's never been charged with anything spending three years in solitary. I must have misunderstood something because I don’t know what he's talking about. And because I don’t know, and because it is a rather serious matter, I’ll not take it personally since, of course, he doesn’t know me (although my posts on East Timor and my links in the Open Letter post make it pretty clear, I think, where I stand on Human Rights), but I’ll say this:

1 - The post was about Cat Stevens, a Brit who became a Muslim in 1977 or 1978 and is now known as Yusuf Islam. He was refused entry into the US and forced to go back to the UK. He has since then been extensively reported to have supported Saddam Hussein during the Gulf War, the fatwa on Salman Rushdie and a Hamas front in Canada *(he has also been banned from Israel). Here is his own fatwa version. The operative sentence for me is I stood up and expressed my belief and I am in no way apologizing for it. And One must not forget the ruling in Islam is also very clear about adultery, stealing and murder, but that doesn't mean that British Muslims will go about lynching and stoning adulterers, theives and murderers. Look up the ruling, it’s an eye-opener. It is very clear indeed. Could he say anything else re British Muslims and not be kicked out of the country, really? Maybe he has indeed softened. Maybe he’s become a moderate. He still fails to convince me. I don’t know if that kind of religious zeal can indeed diminish and I’m always wary of a manic glint in the eye - and yes, JEWS INCLUDED. It’s the sort of thing that literally keeps me up at night, the exact thing I’ve been trying to help fight. I’ll make it clearer: HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS ARE UTTERLY UNACCEPTABLE REGARDLESS OF RELIGION OR NATIONALITY OR TYPE.

So yes, in general terms I do believe any person with an extremist, violence-advocating past SHOULD NOT be allowed in the US (of course, it would have been more effective and less traumatising for all involved had they PREVENTED him from boarding rather then divert the aeroplane to Maine and emergency-land it. Not very trust-inspiring security-wise, is it.). Extremists should not be allowed anywhere, for the matter. If it were up to me, I’d round up all of them and ship them off to a very far-away and not necessarily pleasant desert island. They could then be EXTREMELY extreme and would no longer haunt us.

An irritating quote from Mohammad Abdul Bari, deputy general secretary of the Muslim Council of Britain: It is a slap in the face of sanity. If prominent, well-known personalities are treated like this, then how can there be bridge building? There’s only so much stupidity I can be bothered to discuss. Prominent? That’s the issue? PROMINENT???

2 - I am very troubled by any citizen of any country in detention without charge or trial for any period of time for whatever the cause, be it in solitary or somewhere else. EVERY CITIZEN OF EVERY NATION IS ENTITLED TO CHARGES AND A FAIR TRIAL.

For years I was one of mostly 4-5 people in charge of translating the Amnesty Report for publication here. The verbs and nouns AI reports are made of are of the sort you pray will never be applied to your own life. That has made me more aware than most of the kind of atrocities governments are capable of and I wouldn’t know how to explain to you how it has affected my life. I have seen some of them literally in the flesh.

(On this last one I, OF COURSE, need to elaborate. Shortly after his release he came to Portugal. Because of the decades of torture he cannot move his arms much or eat normal food -no teeth left - so he eats porridge and mashed up food and enjoys it thoroughly. In fact, he enjoys it so much he insists on having his picture taken while eating so it can be sent to the Chinese. You see, they were often made to starve AND watch films of Chinese dignitaries at banquets. Food is VERY important. He has no concept of money. His suitcase was a mixture of a few robes, newspaper cuts and dollars given to him which he was keeping as a souvenir. His translator almost had a fit. He saw the ocean for the first time in Portugal and was very impressed. He lifted up his robes and jumped about in the water but would fast retreat whenever the waves came closer. He thought that Portugal ended there, at that beach, but, when explained to him that it didn’t, he thought it was a brilliant idea that the coast stretched further up and down, well done. There is NO anger or bitterness in him, none. He doesn’t hate his torturers, he doesn’t hate the Chinese. He never did. And because he never did, he says, he was able to survive. He radiates peacefulness in a hollywoodesque illuminated way that is inconceivable to us. There’s a book where the Dalai Lama and 3 scientists discuss science and in it he explains how Tibetan monks achieve this. Pos-traumatic stress is UNHEARD of regardless of degree and length of torture. I'll link it when I find it.)

Because I watch the telly and read the news, I have a good inkling of civilians’ capabilities in that respect as well. But I can tell you that, although neither has a reducing effect on my insomnia, the State wins by a landslide. We all are The State. And when you realise to what extent The State may torture, rape, maim and kill, and IN YOUR NAME, at that, and using YOUR MONEY for it, something is irrevocably changed, and lost, and gained. And that is also why it would NOT cross my mind to go on holiday to a country that still has the death penalty (exception made for the US for US-particular reasons), or a country where one just Disappears never to be heard from again, or a country that combines both (which is quite frequent), because I learnt more shit about them that I ever wanted to, and it is terribly easy for horrors to befall innocent people.

And now I’m depressed. Bah. On a lighter note: Dale, there’s another post brewing because of you, but a happier one this time! ;-) And I survived, as you can see! I had the pleasure of breaking the fast with chilli con carne and sour-cream codfish NOT COOKED BY ME, plus there were ciggies and coke galore so THE WORLD IS A BEAUTIFUL PLACE! Oh - and whatever did you mean by when you disagree with me? Am I to understand from this sentence that sometimes you think I'M WRONG? That cannot be. Must have misunderstood.

* UPDATE: Ah... He is the guest of honour at a fundraising dinner for a Canadian Hamas front; he says Muslims cannot just stand and watch what is happening; he blatantly dismisses Judaism as non-existent and all Jews as seculars (for those of you unfamiliar with the lingo, secular = non religious = infidel); he clearly states that everything other than Islam is "religious uproot"; that the Muslims are the only righteous; and that there's no acceptable political concept or construct or treaty or agent, only Allah.

I stand by everything I wrote only EVEN MORE SO.

The Little Lurker that couldn't

I'm plaphored. I feel bloody silly. I thought I was a successful lurker. I often browse blogs because I love this window into other people's lives. That is the same mechanism that makes me stare at lit windows when I'm walking the dog and wonder, from the bits I glimpse, how people decorated their rooms, what they chose to live with, whether they're happy with the space that shapes them.

Should you be thinking that's voyeurism, OF COURSE IT IS! Without the sexual kink but voyeurism all the same. Out come the Anthropologist's shoulder pads (I like the 80's yes, and I DO remember them): what do you think Anthropology is all about? First you pay THEM so you're trained in how to do it, then they pay YOU - and off you go invading people's daily lives and interpreting it to your heart's content. With a bit of luck you might even turn out not to be all that wrong; if you're very, very unlucky your informants will just pull your leg, at times both of them, and though the results may be disastrous in terms of science (oh but what is science, you ask), they may turn out to be self-aggrandising. Woman, thy name is Margaret Mead.

Here I must digress. (Oh please, if I didn’t you KNOW you’d be disappointed!) Kindly explain to me how someone with that sort of mug managed to be such a temptress. Granted, it may have to do with the fact that when you’re literally trapped with the natives and this is in the 20s and 30’s, no internet, no downloadable porn, only the natives, sexual dimorphism in PLAIN VIEW plus the horror of learning those impossible languages and coping with their gastronomic errors and misguided customs, well, you have to make do with what you have at hand, so to speak.

(Should any misguided cetaceanologist find himself in this white hole of a blog, check out Bateson’s work on deutero-learning and social hieararchy in dolphins - the man wasn’t just an exotic homewrecker and Naven-obsesser. Well, if you work with cetaceans you should know this ALREADY. If you don’t, get Pryor’s and Norris’ books while you’re at it. Great fun to read about the primordial broth.)

So I was a happy lurker. Then I decided to install a site metre, just for the fun of it because the traffic here surely doesn’t warrant it. Or so I thought. In 24 hours I had close to 70 visits. I can understand that when your blog shows as recently updated some people might be induced to give it a click. And then there are the regulars (SHALOM, REGULARS! *Enthusiastic wave*) But 70??? Who are you people??? Why are you here??? How on earth did you find me??? Then I realised I could see who’d been to my site. I also realised every blogger with a site metre knows I was there. And we were not amused. What is the point of lurking if you’re visible? That’s not lurking, that’s being inept and NOT EVEN KNOWING IT! I so wanted to be a nerd…

My practical sense sadly being what it is, I devised a quick and brilliant solution. Quick note on my practical sense: it’s almost nonexistent. I do find solutions for everything but they’re usually pretty convoluted. The easy solution is in fact so easy as to be fully invisible to me. So you can see I’m absolutely NOT exaggerating for dramatic effect, I’ll tell you how I solved the problem of knots in the cables connecting the speakers to the stereo: enlarge the knot till you have a hole and pass the very, very bulky speaker through it. Only while doing the last one did I realise I could have simply unplugged the bloody things. So said solution was to give up my site metre. Yes, I’m smart that way. Of course THAT WOULDN’T HAVE SOLVED ANYTHING, they’d still have my details. So I’m keeping the metre. It’s a good way to remain humble, most visitors couldn’t leave this place fast enough. Or maybe they just have REALLY BAD TASTE.

I’ll now go and eat for three and perhaps, PERHAPS, this Yom Kippur fast WILL NOT kill me. I barely survived TishaB’Av as it was. This I dislike, I may go an entire day without eating because I’m lazy or not hungry - but if I know I CANNOT eat I can think of nothing else. So I will not be logging on until Saturday evening. AND THAT MIGHT JUST KILL ME EVEN FASTER!

Open Letter to America (Oh how could you!)

Dear America:

I am writing to you to convey my dismay at the way you treated that lovely Mr. Yusuf Islam. Do you kow, I had been fully brainwashed by your propaganda. I firmly believed that yours was the land of the free, the worthy country that had created institutions such as Mom, Coke and Apple Pie (please excuse me while I dab at my eyes), the place where Sex, Drugs and Rock'n Roll go to die. To be perfectly honest, America, and if you'll pardon my somewhat common English, I wasn't half proud of you.

And now I hear that you denied entrance to that nice Mr. Yusuf Islam. Dear Lord, do you know who he used to be? More importantly, do you know who he IS? He has been a pillar of the Muslim community in London for years! He founded charities to fight hunger in Africa! He donates most of his royalties to noble causes! Well, maybe not Amnesty International and such but that must count for something, nevertheless. And he IS a Brit.

Surely you will not allow a minute thing like a fatwa for apostasy to cloud your judgement. Who can remember 1989 anyway? I did expect a bit more from you, you know. What his saying Rushdie was blasphemous and deserved to be killed amounts to is: he READ THE BLOODY BOOK and OF COURSE he found it BLOODY AWFUL! It induces catatonia in less that 5 paragraphs, it is an absolute waste of 549 pages and that can hardly be endured with fortitude. I rather badly wanted to throttle the man myself. (And don't be daft, he never supported Hussein, he supported AllSaints, the British girls band, for pity's sake. That is simply bad journalism.) So really, you do see how it could happen. Most unfortunate, I'm afraid. Do you think you could be overreacting just the tiniest bit?

Besides, Mr. Islam did clarify his former statement. He explained very articulately that a death penalty may be carried out only by a court of law. And quite frankly, America, so do you quite regularly (it does get a tad tiresome at times, you know. One shouldn't discuss such matters openly, it's all so unpleasant). Granted Mr. Rushdie is NOT poor, retarded or black. But he has an Indian posh accent, you do see how that can be MOST AGGRAVATING.

Really, America, I'd been led to expect more from you. And such a fine singer too. Leave the poor chap alone.

UPDATE: Oh the bloody idiot! Would you believe I received the most flaming email? Patriot, this is your homework: go look up sarcasm in the dictionary. (A dictionary is a very large book that lists words from A to Z and their definition. Books are wondrous things but even the easiest ones require some level of intelligence to be processed so you might want to not tax yourself. Dictionaries are available online.) And yes, I'm a bad American and you were right, I'm obviously a dyke. (My people also killed Christ, in case you hadn't noticed, that makes me a kyke dyke.) NEWSFLASH, you blinding git: you are the type of American that we all fear. You are a waste of Indians. And it's YOUR comment, not YOU'RE comment, you freaking moron! Is that American enough for you? It's like a bloody epidemic. Now go repaint your trailer before Jerry Springer comes on.

I am a StarShield Dragon. Could you tell?

Take a good look at stunning MOI!



Let's dissect a bit, shall we. (My remarks are in red, should you be somewhat dense; links are blue)

"In the war between good and evil, StarShield Dragons take the side of the noble and good (Excellent!) When it comes to the powers of Chaos vs. those of Law and Order, your inner dragon tends to do things by the book. (Someone needs to take a proper look at my inner dragon) As far as magical tendancies (Tendencies. My inner dragon ain't no spelling bee.), a StarShield Dragon's nature does not lend itself well to the ways of Magic....During combat situations, a true StarShield Dragon prefers to defeat opponents by the use of spells and other tactics.... (er... Is my English failing me? Have my mythical nares got a whiff of contradiction?) (Native-speakers, wouldn't "defeat ... through" be more appropriate here?) The StarShield Dragon appears as the darkest midnight blue, with each of it's (its!!!) scales containing small reflective shards that refract and concentrate light into small star-like beams. StarShield dragons are fast graceful creatures. (Oh stop!) StarShield dragons often make their homes in remote areas, often in the far north or south where the weather is cold (Hot! Where the weather is boiling hot!) and human settlements are few and far between. These dragons are nocturnal. They mostly keep their distance from humans (What a beastly thing to say! I am an absolute party butterfly.), and spend their time enjoying the comforts of nature. (All those divine round-shaped moss beds) StarShield dragons see well at night (It would, in fact, be fair to say they are among the few nocturnal beings that do see at night) and can sometimes be seen hunting during a full moon. StarShield dragons are mysterious in nature (*coy eyelash-batting*) and seem to have a direct link with the universe about them, they are known far and wide as the bringers of good fortune. This Dragon's favourite (humour me) elements are: open spaces, opals, and wisdom." (Broad shoulders don't hurt either)

Most importantly - and this is me again, dense person - there's a tiny, bi-horned, armed git on my back. WHY?

Of innards and how to eat them

(If you're an Anglo-Saxon you shouldn't be reading this. Go on then. Nu? Scoot off!)

I love gizzards. I bought gizzards. I was looking forward to eating the gizzards. I started cooking the gizzards. I burnt the gizzards. So much for lunch.

I think I'll get another coke.

Update: they weren't burnt beyond repair after all, they simply turned palatably crispy - and their fusion with the liver (yes there was liver too, and heart, thought the dog gets that as I refuse to eat ventricula), garlic and onion turned out to be the best gizzardy dish I've ever cooked. Must-burn- more-often.

This is how I

know that my sanity is returning, once more words are flooding me and welcomingly so. I am forever grateful to the dragons who convince me of their non-existence and then take me to their lair. Their silver breathing down my neck is one of my most grateful certainties.

[Cat in Finnish is kissa, isn't it lovely. How fitting.]

Anyone AWAKE? Please tell me who Carrie ends up with!

Samantha: Oh look, seamen on the streets!
Miranda: Please tell me I'll see some sailors when I turn around, with her you never know.

Then again (I'm watching as I'm typing):

Perfect Stranger Sailor: Show me your tits.
And Charlotte (!) does (!).

What do you think the odds are that Miranda will finally learn how to eat without making me gag.

These blasted cats will kill me yet, I was

studying (no I wasn't, I was browsing DM's blog) when I heard a thump and a screech and my heart suddenly got trapped between my molars because what are the chances that a brand new 6-storey fall will not kill either of them or, my biggest concern, even if it doesn't, how am I going to ensure that a 3-legged cat (remember the 6-storey fall remark?) will not become a 2-legged one thus being rearranged into an anatomical shape incompatible with life and why the hell must they gallop across the room (and if you think a 3-legged cat can't gallop you need to come round to my place) and throw themselves against the screen I managed to put up despite my almost having killed myself in the process and barely avoiding ending up as a pancake myself and there are still nights when in that very unguarded moment that precedes sleep I'm jerked awake by the memory of having seen her fall, having witnessed her frantic and all too brief clawing before she vanished and as I ran for the lift I was certain, I was absolutely certain that she was dead, not dead, not only dead, she would be lying there broken, splattered on the pavement but she was alive and I rushed her to the clinic and in the 20 min between the moment she fell and her arrival she'd managed to develop such a big pleural edoema that she couldn't have surgery and her poor back leg was in splinters, literally, and I realised I could stomach any injury but not so well when the animal was in pain, not then, and I had to check her temperature because of hypothermia and the vet was a former colleague who was overwhelmed with work and left me in charge of her until they could X-ray and I couldn't find her anus, I couldn't remember where it was and when I did I still couldn't find it for the longest time, and I had to wait 2 days till I knew for sure the edoema had subsided and she was out of danger, my poor little cat never went into shock but the infection was too far along - why the hell didn't they use external fixation? - so 3 surgeries later she was lacking a leg, very literally unbalanced and raging mad at the world and rightly so, it took her a full 10 days to stop living between the toilet and the bidet in perfect isolation, and I am haunted by that moment when she disappeared and I knew she was dead, and I am grateful that I did watch her fall because if I hadn't - but I can't bear to think about that, it breaks my heart every time I catch her gazing longingly at the tops of shelves and cupboards and I sometimes place her there and she purrs contentedly but she needs to keep every single leg now or life will be bleak and horrid and this is why I cannot simply cannot hear screeching sounds or thumps and am neurotic about windows and still ride the night mare, occasionally in broad daylight.

Sex vs narcosis vs I WILL ONE DAY STAB THIS BLOODY INSOMNIA AND WATCH IT SLOWLY BLEED TO DEATH!

Thank you, thank you, thank you! Sex and the City is back on TV!!! (If she doesn't end up with lovely, edible Mr. Big I'll be royally pissed off. If she ends up with that furniture tosser it's just plain disgusting.) (Can anyone tell me - gently?)

Now I have the perfect excuse to stuff my Anesthaesiology books for a while. Sex and the City is back, surely no exam can top that.

Now I have the perfect excuse to stuff my Anesthaesiology books for a while. Sex and the City is back, surely no exam can top that.

UPDATE - it is with great pleasure that I present to you the perfect way to pass an exam:

1 - First you take the blasted insomnia that has loyally accompanied you to every continent you ever traveled to. Digressing:

2 - You bless the feeling that comes from having your regular insomnia mixed up with the jetlag arising from traveling Tel Aviv-Brussels-Milwakee-LA-Maui, loads of waiting in between, and did you fucking know it takes 6 hours, SIX, to fly this last part alone all over the bloody ocean, and did you know you lose a day in the process, if you leave on the 7th you land on the 9th and how can that not destroy whatever synapses were left standing even if you do retrieve it on the way back but by then you just want to be put out of your misery, though you appreciate the fact that you couldn't very well kill yourself during oh so important a congress because the silverback males whose papers you've had to digest are displaying their mating skills all over the island in a manner that keeps your ethological fingers scribbling demented notes - these are the fucking silverbacks and you may take that literally and oh Prof. RS next time you may want to choose a lady with not so pitted a thigh and advise her to at least not parade herself scarcely clad in the lobby, some of us have to not puke - and you have become too mental to think clearly and don't have any weapons and anyway you are increasingly convinced the suffering alone will kill you but in an inexplicable manner you survive and land in Israel and you can smell your bed beckoning and being stopped by the Israeli customs police when you were so close to your bed, YOUR BED, is simply too much, granted you look demented, you probably re-define demented, but YOU DON'T FUCKING DO DRUGS, NOT EVEN HASH, and you're so tired your bottom lip starts quivering because you have these wankers bullying you and threatening to open your luggage and you absolutely don't want to have Israeli Security opening your luggage because they'll mess it up and you'll never get it closed again and you'll have tampons all over the floor AGAIN plus the whole thing will take hours, HOURS, so you keep a stiff upper lip - there's no fucking way they'll see you cry, give them your most withering stare, lose your tremper and demand, DEMAND to see their supervisor because they may be in charge of security and rightly so but they have no bloody right to be rude, DON'T THEY TEACH YOU ANYTHING AND GO AHEAD AND OPEN THE STUPID SUITCASE SEE IF I CARE BUT WHATEVER YOU DO DO IT NOW BECAUSE I'M TIRED AND I WANT TO SIT DOWN AND I WANT TO SPEAK TO YOUR SUPERVISOR NOW! and they somehow let you go and you waited until you'd reached your best friend then-boyfriend to burst into tears and sort of sobbed intermittently all the way to the kibbutz and everything is a blur after that although you still remember the general feeling of I'm-losing-my-mind permeating the following week and this is why you never really had the opportunity to enjoy Ha-wa-ii and you have a feeling the 3 hours spent going down that stupid, freezing volcano and then crawling back up again didn't much help either and DON'T EVEN MENTION THE BLOODY WHALES YOU NEVER REALLY GOT TO SEE!

3 - Returning to matter at hand: you must study, obviously. Resolutely.

4 - The resolution bit is of the utmost importance when studying Anesthaesiology, disbelievers are hereby formally invited to do some researching. On the other hand, I can now tell you loads about the dangers of malignant hypothermia in susceptible pigs (pigs are finnicky little buggers, who'd have thought) and did you know that etorphin can cause respiratory depressions in wild animals.

5 - You set your mobile alarm. You set your landline alarm. You stare at the clock oh bloody hell 5.30 am already, exam at 9 am, not to worry you'll wake up - because not only are you a FUCKING INSOMNIAC you also WAKE UP with your heart racing whenever the nextdoor neighbour so much as SNEEZES. (Though bizarrely enough you never seem to be able to whenever you truly must. Hence the resorting to double alarms and occasionally parents and/or friends, and on one sadly memorable occasion, unbeknownst to you, the mother of a colleague but you manage to no longer blush when you think about it.)

6 - You wake up somewhat refreshed but with a start at 11 am, having managed to turn off the mobile alarm - to be expected - and to have buried your landline under a pillow in the living-room before going to bed in the best Freudian slip manner that is so typical of you with the result that you not only missed the exam but also managed to scare the living daylights off a colleague who spent the 15 min before and the 20 min after ringing you uninterruptedly - to no avail, in case it wasn't clear enough - because she was convinced that something bad had happened to you.

7 - It had, only it was of the type that leaves your virtue intact.

8 - I WILL ONE DAY STAB THIS BLOODY INSOMNIA AND WATCH IT SLOWLY BLEED TO DEATH! And there will be CACKLING too.

Almost-genital post but not quite as it turns out

My friend - Jesus, was it? - has got me musing about slang differences. You see, I learned my English in a British school. Even though we have loads of American series and movies and my slang is a bit influenced by it, British English is my template. This has given rise to all sorts of fabulous confusions, case in point being my previous post.

I was pretty sure about my use of slang, i.e. it was so ingrained I just used it without giving it much thought. Until one day not so long ago. I had an American staying with me for a few weeks and was telling her a very unkind joke about a gipsy (there was an Anthropological point to it, worry your PC little heads no more) and her fanny. A British one, a vagina. She looked doubtful and asked for clarification regarding anatomical terms.

"You know what you are saying when you say fanny, right?"
"Er, yes. Fanny. Our twat. Your pussy so to speak."
"You're wrong, a fanny is an ass for the Brits as well."

Right. Funny thing about being an English-speaking foreigner. Even though you may feel damn sure about the things you say, when natives tell you you're wrong you are led to consider that it might just be so and your inclination will be to assume they're right - she's pretty articulate usually - especially if you aren't sleeping so much, are doubling too many consonants and your mind is fusing all the languages you once spoke or even merely heard of (I have this notion there are a lot of "KK" in the Finnish word for "shoes"). (Decided have a look at it, it seems our friends the Finns are shoe-worshippers: jalkine, kengittää, kenkä, liukukappale. I knew there had to be "KK" somewhere, I once went shoe-shopping with a Finnish exchange student.)(I love the internet.)

So I assumed that a fanny is a fanny is a fanny. When I wrote the previous post I meant it in what I, post-correction, thought was both the British and the American sense. Our bum, your butt.

Then Jesus started me thinking (alright, I am now resisting the pull of the vortex created by this last sentence, there are so many levels on which to work it, Jewish Holyday and all)

So yes he started me thinking about that. Because that nagging fanny feeling persisted. So I got out the dictionary and yes, she was partly right because in the US fanny is an innocuous way of referring to a bum. She was bloody wrong in correcting me though because I was right*. We had valid, different definitions for the same thing. So it would seem that I do know more British English and should stick to my smoking words. We also had an argument regarding hire and rent. I was taught that we hire anything mobile and rent immobile assets. As in hire car and people, rent houses. She said it wasn't like that in America. I can't be bothered to even confirm it. I'll go on hiring cars, I suppose, I can't bear the alternative - there will be a clipped voice in my ear saying "I beg your pardon! I believe you know better than to say that.".

But this is a recurring theme. I once had an argument with an Australian who tried to convince me that both people and objects were hung. They are not. People are hanged. Do you know how long we went over matters like these at school? How many exercises we did? How many sentences we rephrased? How many essays we wrote? How long we were forced to utter "Edinbra" till we could roll our "rr" in all their proper glory?

I'm keeping my britlieves.

So when I say "Blow me [down]!" I'm just surprised and not actually asking for oral sex, nor could I be unless I grew a willie (and yes when I first heard of "Free Willie" I thought it was hilarious because a willie is a penis and Bob's your uncle. Orcas pop into my mind a good while later - as well it should be). I have two pussies and they purr, my car has a boot and a bonnet, letters are posted, a "Z" is a "Zed", I live in a flat and my kitchen has taps, knives are blunt, people are dull, I love aubergine, school starts in a fortnight and I can't be fagged to think about it or I'll be gutted, and I think this post will go down like a bomb. Which means of course you'll think it's smashing.

Almost forgot: anatomy, UP YOUR BLOODY YOURS.

* - She has apologised in the most grovelling manner and informed me that there is a "Cafe Fanny" where she lives and she'll take a picture and send it over. I can barely contain myself.

Goodbye and thanks for all the sheep!

II passed the blasted anatomy exam.

I will NEVER EVER EVER again fucking have to dissect a fucking pus-filled, abcess-full, peritonitis- and brucellosis-ridden sheep in my fucking life for as long as I fucking live!!! I will NEVER EVER EVER again have to feel fucking guilty for dissecting a fucking pus-filled, abcess-full, peritonitis- and brucellosis-ridden sheep - that was kept alive in miserable conditions just so we could have the privilege - in my fucking life for as long as I fucking live!!! Fucking third-world country.

To the sheep, of which there were plenty, my apologies. Anatomy, UP YOUR BLOODY FANNY.

And a Happy New Year to us all.

God has a funny sense of humour

It doesn't matter if I'm feeling lonely and cut off. It doesn't matter if no one around me knows that we are celebrating and why. It doesn't matter if I'm not. It doesn't matter that I don't seem to belong anywhere. There is hope in beginnings, there is always hope in beginnings. So it doesn't fucking matter that I'm crying, not really. Today it would seem that my tears are right up God's alley.

Leshanah tovah tikatvu.

I have NERDIFIED myself to near perfection!

This was the original post:

I feel pretty pleased with myself, I do, I do!

I figured out how to insert links to other blogs - which should be obvious since I did figure out how to insert links to other blogs and you're looking at this - all by myself! And then, and this is the absolute best, I figured a way to have 2 types of links! So today I did some computer coding. I'm rolling the words around in my mouth, repeat after me, I did some coding! I bloody impressed myself! I'm on my way to nerddom.

Mind you, I have always been brilliant with VCR programming, TV tuning and the likes. I have read countless stories of women who are clueless, and actually have a few girlfriends who are too. So this particular urban myth rings true. As a matter of fact, when I was in Israel I bought a TV and the cable guy came over (I'd rather go without food). After much head-shaking and messing around with the channels trying to find the VCR one, he turned to me and said that my TV was not compatible with the system, so sorry, I should get a new one. After he left I decided it simply could not be. This was 1999, how could a brand new TV be incompatible with any system? Too much even for Israel. So I set to work and, surprise, I soon found the channel. Eizeh metumtam! And to top it all, he wasn't even hot. Bah.
(Unrelated: I was living in Israel at the time. Phone rings, international call. Father's on the line. Father says: "_Insert my real name_ darling, I want to see a movie, I've put the tape in, tell me again what I'm supposed to do now." We'd had the VCR for 13 years. So you see I'm working against genetics. It turns out to be related after all.)

If you're a nerd reading this and smirking patronisingly, consider this: I can kick up to your shoulder level without even warming up, probably higher if you happen to be a very small nerd. What about you? Talk to the leg.

UPDATE: I got fed up with not being able to insert the quote for the blog's name so I decided to tackle it today. At first I couldn't figure out how to do it because the funny little things Blogger Help said would be listed in the beginning of my template, and to start from there, didn't exist. Shocker. So I decided to look around. And at that time not even Jay could help me. But then I found it! On my own! And I added the code wih some really astounding easy confidence! And code worked! And there was much rejubilation and lamb slaying and roasting across the land.

And then I decided I needed to Boldify the font. And then it was gone. Quote was gone.

And sadness swept the nation like a plague and even the locusts wept. And Jay, yes, Jay The Nerdster came to my rescue - again. And after much transatlantic tossing and turning and head-scracthing he discovered a tiny " was in the way. And there was laughter and mirth vocalisations on both sides of the ocean.

And I hereby thank him - again - and give myself an auto-smooch. For this time I truly outdid myself in proficient nerdyness.

And if you're not a nerd, or even an aspiring nerd - well, I pity you. How boring your life must be.

Blogger Needs Jay's Help!!!

Yesterday I posted this: I NEED TECHIE HELP!!! - Alright, this is not normal. My profile and the archives have been moved to the bottom of the blog which doesn't help anyone, least of all me. I have tried copy-pasting the code bit pertaining to sidebar but moving it around causes the whole thing to disappear. Can anyone tell me how to fix this? I'm sure I'm overlooking something quite easy, simple, obvious. Thank you!

I received a very fast, very friendly email from X with Blogger Support Team: Hi there, On occasion, the side-bar will shift when the content contained within the side-menu or a post extends the column beyond its designated width. We recommend reviewing the content in both columns to identify items that maybe causing column expansion. In most cases, long links and wide images are the cause of the problem. Well. I swear I thought they should have been able to come up with something simpler by now.

Then in blinding succession I received one email from Jay (has to be like this, still haven't figured out how to insert permanent links to other blogs) asking me for my code so he could help; another email saying nevermind he had it; and a third one explaining in really easy terms that I had a pixel problem* (leprechauns galore) and how I should fix it. It took a second and worked brilliantly.

Yuuhuuuu! Blogger Support team, are you there? Can you hear me? Oh, hullo. Yes, quite a lovely day - WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING??? X received a very friendly email from me back suggesting they tried recommending this to people with my same problem - and I have a feeling we are legion.

So now we know this:

1 - Jay is a brilliant writer AND a brilliant nerd (redundant? I'm envious anyway.)
2 - Blogger needs to fire X,Y,Z and hire Jay
3 - Jay cracks up my code and I

And on his birthday too. THANK YOU, Jay Dahling, e parabéns!

We are indeed legion. So instead of my emailing the same info over and over again, here's what you should do. Go to Template. The original Content Width is 660 pixels, change it to 750 pixels.

/* Content
-----------------------------------------------
*/#content {
width:750px;
margin:0
auto;
padding:0;
text-align:left;
}
#main {
width:410px;
float:left;

Smiles for Beth

- East Timor Holds First Free Elections August 30


http://www.globosapiens.net/data/gallery/tt/pictures/www.globosapiens.net--east-timor--id=3551.jpg


http://www.childrenontheedge.org/assets/newsphoto/smilinggirl2news120.jpg
https://www.opportunity.org.au/ezimagecatalogue/catalogue/variations/24-200x200.jpg

(these images may be copyrighted)

PLAPHORA ©

I have been neglecting my plaphora and it deserves to be etherised. This is how plaphora came to be.

I was talking to an American friend who speaks Portuguese but needs to practice. It was one of those bilingual conversations involving 3 people. I think it was smack in the middle of an insomnia bout - the problem with insomnia is that your synapses are the first to go and you end up with a fair amount of amnesia surrounding different periods of your life even if you were sleeping during some of them. So have a care.

Another problem is that whenever I start speaking several languages at once something always goes awry (yet another funny thing is that there are words I use but have never heard spoken. Say, “albeit”. Because of German, I convinced myself it’s pronounced “I’ll bite” - instead of “al-be-it”. Imagine my dismay and the listener’s glee. But that’s a whole different post). I will sometimes use a word from one language with the accent of another and be very surprised when I’m blankly stared at. I find myself thinking in English often even when I’m alone (i.e. no visitors) but the mental verbal transition sometimes create problems. Wires get crossed and I find myself saying the most astonishing things. Even in Portuguese, which is beyond humiliating since I can’t stand native speakers badly speaking their languages (When foreigners do it it’s cute - except for when I’m the foreigner, then we’re back to the pride issue again).

So we were in the car and - we’ve just entered another fuzzy area, please bear with me - and I was trying to translate a word for her, I think. It came out as a cross between “plétora” (plethora) and “metáfora” (metaphor). PLAPHORA. (Accent on “pla”. Obviously.)

It immediately came of age on its own and we watched it soar. I wiped a discreet tear. And now I can say the whole thing is plaphora [nonsense, distasteful, unpleasant]. I can curse the blasted plaphorisms one hears on occasion. I’m plaphored at times [disgusted, outraged, hurt, devastated]. Funnily enough, Thesaurus is not convinced - and that is a bit plaphorous, wouldn't you say?

It works in English + French + German/Dutch + Scandinavian languages, I should think (Plaphora; to plaphor + plaforer + plaphoren/ + need help); Portuguese (Pláfora; plaforar) + Spanish (Plafora; idem) + Italian (idem; plaforare); and even Hebrew (plaforah; Le'hitplafer)!

Isn’t it the most excellent little word???

NOTE: plaphora has been copyrighted along with whole blog. You're very welcome to use it, but if you appropriate it, I'll hurt you badly in every sense of the word - and you'll be plaphored before you know it. Ha.