Nepenthe

I scored 87... at 7 pm, under the light of my desk lamp :| The 100 hue test

Hubble Heritage Image Gallery

Crónica do jornalista português João Gobern , emitida na Antena 1 , no dia 6 de Outubro de 2008, à volta do chamado "tecnocratês" em circuito fechado, de muitas sílabas e ao ritmo do império linguístico anglo-americano. Há algum tempo, a braços com uma tarefa profissional que aceitei de boa-fé e em que acabei a maldizer a minha sorte, recebi uma mensagem electrónica que começava assim: «Relativamente às nossas necessidades, houve efectivamente uma evolução no desenvolvimento de projecto, sendo que vamos reavaliar e colocar à sua ponderação.» Tentarão os menos avisados adivinhar em que altas cavalarias andaria eu metido para suscitar uma resposta de tal quilate. Lamento desiludir os que em mim depositaram tais expectativas. Deixem-me que explique: na fase final desse trabalho, eu tinha apenas perguntado em concreto o que ainda esperavam de mim para concluir a colaboração, qual o prazo que estava destinado, alertando para a dificuldade de me deslocar para longínquas terras e e...

All things (cute are) Japanese ;) Cute Overload , you've (out) done (yourself) it again

An American has no sense of privacy. He does not know what it means. There is no such thing in the country. George Bernard Shaw

Check what these are at the TimesOnline photo gallery .

Tells us Yael Miller, from Reuben Miller , where I found it (check the Architecture roll on the left): Using the modular functionality of Lego building blocks, designer Joel Hesselgren created a fun concept for a dual salt-pepper shaker. Shake salt, pepper or a combination of both - depending on the cap position.

(...) a society that is culturally geared - as its overwhelming priority - to bring up happy, healthy children, by however many fathers and mothers. A lot of it comes from their Viking ancestors, whose males were rampant looters and rapists, but had the moral consistency at least not to be jealous of the dalliances of their wives - tough women who kept their families fed in the semi-tundra harshness of this north Atlantic island while their husbands forayed, for years at a time, far and wide. As a grandmother I met on my first visit to Iceland, two years ago, explained it: 'The Vikings went abroad and the women ran the show, and they had children with their slaves, and when the Vikings returned they accepted it, in the spirit of the more the merrier.' (...) When a child's birthday comes around, not only do the various sets of parents turn up for the party, the various sets of grandparents - and whole longboats of uncles and aunts - come too. Iceland, lodged in the middle of...

YOU, THEREFORE For Robert Philen You are like me, you will die too, but not today: you, incommensurate, therefore the hours shine: if I say to you “To you I say,” you have not been set to music, or broadcast live on the ghost radio, may never be an oil painting or Old Master’s charcoal sketch: you are a concordance of person, number, voice, and place, strawberries spread through your name as if it were budding shrubs, how you remind me of some spring, the waters as cool and clear (late rain clings to your leaves, shaken by light wind), which is where you occur in grassy moonlight: and you are a lily, an aster, white trillium or viburnum, by all rights mine, white star in the meadow sky, the snow still arriving from its earthwards journeys, here where there is no snow (I dreamed the snow was you, when there was snow), you are my right, have come to be my night (your body takes on the dimensions of sleep, the shape of sleep becomes you): and you fall from the sky with several flowers, wo...

'cos I've never been there :|, only set out to have Japanese lessons >) Postcards from the Postcrossing swap

Spartan As in, "Tarquin, I know the minimalist look is right up your street, but don't you think the room looks a little spartan with the actual floorboards removed?" Simple, severe, lacking in comfort: that does in fact pretty much sum up what we know about the life of the Spartans. Despite its position as a Greek military superpower, the place had none of the kind of impressive architecture that would have overwhelmed the eye of a fifth-century visitor to Athens. Famously, Sparta also lacked walls or fortifications (it demonstrated that the inhabitants were such butch soldiers they didn't need nancy-boy walls to keep them safe). But being "Spartan" also meant adhering to a system of iron discipline, with boys taken out of their families for military training at the age of seven and, uniquely for ancient Greece, girls also given an education and athletic training - the better, presumably, to give birth to warrior sons. This was the background that produced ...

I watched it years ago in the States, and today, of all days, I feel like watching it again.

October 1 is the 274th day of the year (275th in leap years ) in the Gregorian calendar . There are 91 days remaining until the end of the year. Events 331 BC - Alexander the Great defeats Darius III of Persia in the Battle of Gaugamela . 911 - During a siege in Constantinople , the Theotokos appeared at the church in Blachernae holding her veil over the praying faithful, among them St. Andrew of Constantinople. 959 - Edgar the Peaceable becomes king of all England . 1189 - Gerard de Ridefort , grandmaster of the Knights Templar since 1184 , is killed in the Siege of Acre . 1787 - Russians under Suvorov defeat the Turks at Kinburn . 1791 - First session of the French Legislative Assembly . 1795 - Belgium is conquered by France . 1800 - Spain cedes Louisiana to France via the Treaty of San Ildefonso . 1811 - The first steamboat to sail the Mississippi River arrives in New Orléans, Louisiana . 1814 - Opening of the Congress of Vienna , intended to redraw the ...