Why is it so difficult to get to bed on Sunday’s? Could it be a dread of Mondays or maybe just a total denial that the weekend has ended?
Photo: Naptime by Mathias Klang (CC by-nc)
other stuff
Banging head against virtual wall
According to runners mythology there comes a time in a marathon when the runners hit “the wall” it is apparently a place when all the bodies energy simply dries up and the runner is left to finish on sheer will-power alone.
Today I hit the wall early at work. Have been working inefficiently on sheer will-power and I am now going home. This is totally useless information to most of you – like everything else on the web I suppose but I decided that I would feel much better if I moaned about this here. I didn’t work very well so I am still going home.
Just to make sure that this downer of mine does not spread to you here is a random cute puppy picture to cheer us all up.
Puppy Eyes by A? L? (CC by-nc-nd)
the fart of god
If you need a minute of comic relief check out this video on YouTube where Richard Dawkins reads some of the more amusing (and tragic) hate mail.
I really liked: “Your famed intelligence is nothing more than the fart of god…” If you do believe in a supreme being, do you really believe that he/she/it farts?
Old bones
The Swedish National Heritage Board is the agency of the Swedish government that is responsible for heritage and historic environment issues. Naturally they are big on preservation and conservation so they are happy when the general public sends them items to conserve and preserve. Sometimes this gets a bit weird. A couple of days ago they receieved a bone in the post. Nothing else. No letter, no questions, no explanations – just a bone. And you thought you got some weird junk mail 🙂
They would love to have more information and so they posted the info on their blog.
Remember the 80s
via GraphJam
Breaking a mirror
Yesterday I managed to break a medium sized mirror that is meant to hang in my hallway – no I am not superstitious. What is really annoying about this is that I need to go and buy a replacement mirror, it’s not difficult but it does entail a trip to Ikea.
The idea that breaking mirrors means bad luck comes from the Romans, who were among the first to make mirrors. They believed that somehow when looking in the mirror you saw a part of yourself, part of your soul – not only a reflection.This also explains why vampires don’t have reflections in mirrors since they have no souls.
And if you broke the mirror then parts of you would be trapped in the shards. The reason it was seven years of bad luck lies in the belief that the soul regenerates every seven years.
photo: Antiques by Jean Ruaud (CC by-nc-nd)
Well I am not superstitious but I still need to get a ride to Ikea.
Saint for procrastinators and hackers
Saints live interesting lives after their death. The memories and stories are abused and distorted into being something they probably never were. One of these is Saint Expeditus, the saint invoked against procrastination and for speedy solutions. He is the patron saint of Navigators and also an unofficial patron of computer hackers and programmers.
St Expeditus – photo: Constance Wiebrands (CC by-nc-sa)
In addition to being useful against procastination and to programmers St. Expeditus also has ties to Voodoo culture & on the island of RĂ©union where his shrines are sometimes decorated with underwear.
It’s not even sure if he existed but the story goes that he was a roman centurion and became a christian martyr. A convent in Paris recieved a statue of him, or relics of him according to other sources, in a box with the text “spedito” or Expeditus in Latin. The statue is now in New Orleans. What is sure is that the no one really knows if he was a saint but whoever he was his real name was not Expeditus.
It’s amazing how this man has evolved after death in ways nobody could have imagined.
(Sources: Wired, Patron Saint Index, Molossia.org, Catholiconline.org)
The value of hunger
Towards the end of The Godfather (1972) Vito Corleone has handed over his business to his son and he admits to getting more tired, older and less interested. He sums it all up with the words: “I like to drink wine more than I used to.” What the old man was saying was that he had lost his edge, his competitiveness – his hunger.
Not long ago I blogged about the importance of failure on daring to fail and learning from failure, instead of trying to forget it ever happened, but what is needed before this is the desire, drive, hunger to move ahead. Now hunger in situations like this is a strange thing since it is not really the same thing as wanting something – these are easily confused.
Wanting something is easy and requires no effort. I want to run a marathon, pass an exam, write a book or travel the world. Wants are cheap and plentiful. Hunger on the other hand is the drive that is required to acheive a want. It’s easy enough to quote Nike’s old slogan: Just do it! but actually doing it is not that easy.
Hunger comes and goes – there are plenty of tips and tricks around not to let your hunger be frizzled unneccessarily due to lack of some other need (sleep, food, exercise or time) but what can be done to ensure that the hunger remains within us?
Sorry if this seems like a strange rant – its just something that bugged me today.
Mix Tape is back
Anne Frank
It’s her birthday today – she would have been 79 today…