HP Lovecraft wrote that the footmen of the elder-gods were froglike beings, slime clad dwellers of dankness. When the gods withdrew from the earth, for reasons known only to themselves, the frogs remained - but only as bog-eyed shadows of their former selves.
The frog, Star-Spawn of Cthulu; She waits eternally for the call of her shambling betentacled master. One day she will heed his screech and join the blind-idiot god Yog Shothoth. Only then can she regain her true form. Even now, she longs to serve those gibbering and mindless aincient-ones.
She longs for the day that she and her writhing childrren will once again be froggy servants. Only then will she unleash this simpering spite, for she has been chosen to torment mankind, until its final insanity.
A tadpole feast… tasty.
Perhaps he was inspired to write about them by visions such as this: The tadpoles are hungrily devouring the mouldering remains of frogspawn that has failed to hatch. I think the eggs died on an unexpectedly frosty spring night. Strange that the tadpoles did not attempt to eat it until it had first aquired a layer of gleet.
The surface of the pond appears to be fizzing with the tiny creatures; Their little tailes enthusiastically wiggling in an orgiastic display of canibalism. The tadpoles are mired in the rotting remains of their brothers.
One day her children shall rise up and defeat us all…
“That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange æons, even death may die” - HP Lovecraft
Tim Burton’s “A Nightmare before Xmas”, is a 77 minute stop-motion, all singing all dancing extravaganza. It the story of Jack Skellington, “Pumpkin King” of Haloween Town, who has grown mealoncholy with his lot as chief scarer. All this changes when he accidentally wanders into nearby Xmas town, a baffling place where everybody is motivated by seasonal cheer rather than ghoulish fear.
Jack resolves to take over Xmas for himself; To him it seems far more fun than Haloween, however the rest of Haloween town do not share Jack’s new obsession.
The humor comes from the contrast between the efficient kitch of Christmastown (populated by grinning gnomes), and the misguided enthusiasm Haloween Town’s residents (Vampires, Zombies, Witches and a mad-scientist). Jack’s henchmen are instructed to re-create Christmas, but do so in their own morbid style. Despite this Jack Skellington truly believes that his Christmas will be the jolliest ever.
I intend to show this film to my neice and nephewes, to see if it turns them into goths. Obviously I do not expect this transformation to occur instantly; According to leading film review site Cap Alert, gothication is sure to occur if I expose these young minds to films of a non-Christian nature.
The path of the goth leads from innocent childhood, via social exclusion, past an infactuation with death and graveyards, terminating at black lipstick and spikey clothing is a difficult one to tread. Films that feature the singing undead are not nececarily the inspiration of this particular life-style, but it should at least deliver a more persuasive message than the Sunday School that the children are made to attend.
This film is available in all good video shops, and most average quality bittorrent download sites.
This image featuring the face of George Bush II with the ears of Mickey Mouse was found on the pavement between Belsize Park and Hampstead tube stations, not far from the Royal-Free hospital. I get the impression that the author of this image dislikes the Disney Corporation, and the President of the USA, which narrows him or her down to anywhere in Europe, Asia or South America. There are reports of these images appearing elsewhere in the Camden area.
While notionally allied to one another (Disney Corporation have provided a great deal of funding to the president’s brother), The juxtaposition of these icons is done in a way that neither would enjoy, despite having similar values. I doubt that a joining of Castrol and Cadburys would yield the same response.
The caption reads “Disney War”, as if to say under the bush presidency warfare is now a form of entertainment to be marketed and delivered in handy sound-bites by big-media. At least that is what I think I am supposed to think - the best protest art can be interpreted in whatever way you like; for example the artist might be suggesting that Bush is a mouse-like coward for not persecuting his recent battles with enough vigour… that wee timorous beastie.
At the risk of pedantry, it is also worth noting that the character depicted here appears to have both human and mouse ears. It’s unsual in any kind of chimeric creature for major anatomical features to be duplicated, so let us more safely assume that the president is wearing a “Mousketeer” hat: The naff outfits worn by the child-presenters of Disney’s Mickey Mouse Club.
Not so long ago I was lucky enough to see Richard Herring’s new stand-up routine “Someone Likes Yoghurt“, performed at Downstairs at the Kings Head, Crouch End’s local comedy venue. More than any of Richard’s work this act polarized the audience. Some (Like me) felt that it was brilliantly inventive comedy created from absolutely nothing, however others (Like my girlfriend) felt that a 45 minute set mainly concerning other people’s attitudes to a yoghurt buying incident was a bit much.
The act describes a trip to the supermarket, with the attempt to stock up on yoghurt products, and his reflection upon the comments of the check-out ladies. Most of the sketch is spent defending his manly status, which he feels is somewhat harmed by being accused of liking yoghurt more than the average bloke. He also goes into some detail about the ways he might consume his twelve yoghurts, and the various permutaions of yoghurt consumption. According to his web-site, an even longer version of this routine is destined to become Herring’s Edinburgh show this year.
And I might also add, Richard Herring writes a daily blog/journal thing called Warming Up which is very funny indeed.
Wednesdays have allways been my favorite day of the week on Resonance FM. Great comedy such as Epistaxis Time and Hooting Yard abound, and now the powers that be at Resonance have seen fit to add a new show to this schedule: June loves Janet.
This new show featues Julia Davis and Jessica Stevenson, both semi-famous tv/film comedy actors. The Resonance schedules are not exactly clear when the first episode will be broadcast, however I am sure these things will become apparant in due time.
This year I plan to vote Lib Dem. I expect that they will gain a few seats at the expense of the Conservative and Labour parties. In my own constituancy of Harringey, Lib Dem, former MEP Lynne Featherstone is battling Barbara Roche, a very experienced Labour MP. The local Liberal party seem more up-beat than I can ever remember, and I think they might have a chance of taking Harringey from Labour.
I am quite happy with Barbara as an MP. She answered all of my letters promptly, often going to extrordinary lengths to pry a response from reluctant departments. Mrs Roche has an excellent liberal voting record, and seems like the sort of person who could be trusted to represent Harringey. So why have I decided to vote Liberal this election?
A positive campaign; I find the arguments between the Labour and Conservative parties so annoying, particularly the way that each side knowingly mis-represents the opinions of the other. For the little the Lib-Dems have said, they have mainly discussed their own policies rather than attack straw-man arguments.
Honesty about taxes; Of course taxes will have to go up if we want every child to have the opportunity of a free university education. The Conservative and Labour parties have meerly said that some forms of taxation will not go up, but been unwilling to say plainly that they too will want to put up taxes.
ID Cards; The lib-dems have promised to abandon what I consider to be the single greatest threat to liberty - not terrorists, but the pervasive surveilance culture. Labours obsession with ID Cards seems to be like an unhealthy seige mentality. The conservative party seem to support ID Cards, because they are afraid to appear to be ’soft on terrorism’, when niether side has convincingly demonstrated that ID cards will address any of their purported goals.
Anti War; The lib-dems consistently opposed war in Iraq, even before it was widely known that the government’s ‘WMD’ allegations were entirely bogus. While it might be too late to extract British troops from Iraq, they were correct to point out that the UK should not have got involved with this trumped-up conflict.
Racism; Unlike the conservative party, the Lib-Dems have acknowledged that the nation benefits from immigrants. The conservative policy of enforcing fixed limits on immigration is ludicrous given our nation’s industrial skills shortage.
Now as long as the dems dont ruin things with some awful, trite campaign posters or stupid political broadcasts, then they can count on my vote…
I have owned this camera for about a month, and on the whole I am delighted with it. It was an upgrade from my older Casio EX-Z40, which is still a very respectable ‘point and shoot’ super-compact. The P700 is substantially chunkier but does a whole lot more.
The best things about this camera are the inclusion of manual modes, and a large Canon lens. The screen is good, and the addition of a thumb-control allows mode-switching to be done with less annoying menu-navigation. This combination of features allows the P-700 to take the kind of strange images that delight me. For example, I bagged this on on holiday in Cape-Town, it’s a 1 minute exposure with a widest possible appeature.
This camera is too big to be called a super-compact. The lens projects forwards from the camera by about 1cm, and the screen sticks out by about 0.5cm at the back. The P700 is too big to fit into your trouser pockets, but is quite comfortable in a jacket pocket. I got mine with a faux-leather carry case that fits neatly in my camelback.
The only thing I dislike about this camera is the bulging optical viewfinder (the plastic bit above the lens). I dont see the point of an optical viewfinder on a digital compact camera. I am sure these things are very important on an SLR, but I have never needed or trusted the optical viewfinders on compact cameras. The plastic bit on the front really runis the camera’s looks, and in my opinion Casio should re-consider this feature.
What on earth were they thinking? Did you know that the original Sony HD walkman products could not play MP3 files? At the time, Sony’s market-droids said that it was possible, however the process of playing an MP3 involved tediously converting MP3s to Sony’s proprietary ATRAC format; Loss of quality due to transcoding is inevitable.
Sony’s refusal to drink the MP3 kool-aid comes from a corporate conflict of interest. Sony makes more money from licensing music than it does from selling equipment to play that music. Consequently, their portable music hardware has to be crippled to eliminate the possiblity that their machines could be used for any kind of piracy. By making a player that could not understand MP3, Sony customers would have little desire to obtain pirate MP3 files, and a greater desire to buy music from legitimate sources.
Of course, the only legitimate source of ATRAC files, is Sony Music’s own on-line music store (Windows Only). or ripping your own ATRACs from CD using the Sony-Walkman software (Windows Only). If you do not own a Windows computer, then you may be out of luck.
It came as no surprise at all when Sony eventually relented. Just in time for the Xmas rush, they announced that henceforth, all new players would support MP3, however what they did not tell buyers was that these files needed to be loaded-on with proprietary software that encrypts the MP3s. The player could not play a normal un-mangled MP3 file. I guess this is what record companies call ‘Rights Management’, however truthfully, this system only deprives customers of their rights.
Anyway, somebody has cracked Sony’s encryption algorythm, rendering it all rather pointless. Doubly so when you consider that almost nobody has a Sony HD Walkman. I prefer iRiver’s H Series players. They play all common media formats including Ogg-Vorbis without any silly mangling at all.
I’ve become curious about ‘Ruby on Rails‘ much in the same way that I might become curious about a noisy party going on next-door at 4am on a work-night. Shall I get out of bed and see whats going on? Naah.
I think the author of this article, is quite big on Quixote, which is supposed to be yet another web application framework for Python.
I have allways admired these distribution transformer radiators as a form of unintended art: Who could fail to see the brutal beauty of these machines. They remind me of the egyptian pyrimids, an imposing pagan symbol - perhaps an invitation to a long forgotten fertility rite, inspired by the elder-gods; Certainly containg the coded instructions required to operate a Stargate.
If I had my way, thse gadgets would be prominently displayed, not hidden behind brick-walls and barbed wire fences. We would build victorian style industrial temples to surround these monuments to mankinds’ ambition. Childrewn would gaze, awe-struck with the realisation that without machines like this we would be in the techological middle-ages. Oh majestic industry!
These radiators are intended to cool the enormous transformers at electricity sub-stations. The conductive elements of the transformer are bathed in oil. This oil is circulated through the transformer and then back into the radiator. The oil they use is of a similar consistency to fuel-oil. This substance has has a very high heat capacity and is very stable in the absence of oxygen.
The cylindrical tank at the top of the radiator is full of hot oil which trickles down the fronds either side. A pump returns the cooled oil to the transformer on the other side of the wall. There is a circular temperature gauge at the top, it was reading just below 50 Celcius, which is quite hot given that the weather today was only 10 degrees.
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