Scattered thoughts

I know this isn't really, or shouldn't really be, the first concern of anyone hearing about the huge earthquake in Chile but this just struck me and I wanted to ramble briefly on LJ about it. It truly doesn't mean I'm being callous about the victims or anything.

Hi, I'm Lizzie and I'm an ex-mormon. I've been out for around 7 years. There are still some things I do, or largely don't do, like not really drinking alcohol at all, ever, and not drinking tea and coffee, that flag me as culturally mormon (I never got into the habit of drinking them after I left), but more and more I find that I just don't think about Mormons or Mormonism much any more. Which is actually quite nice.

When I woke up this morning and heard about the 8.8 magnitude earthquake in Chile my thoughts went to just one thing, which really irritated me as soon as I realised what had happened in my brain. The first thing I thought, coming so soon after the Haiti earthquake was "It's the latter-days" (According to LDS Church teachings...It is...believed that there will be increasingly severe wars, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other man-made and natural disasters prior to the Second Coming.)

When I was growing up the fact that I was part of a priviledged generation who would be around for the Latter Days and Second Coming was constantly brought up in Primary and Young Women and Sunday School. In it, the thought both scared and inspired me. Out of it, I would imagine they've been saying this stuff to every up-and-coming generation since the formation of the church.

As time has gone on since I left, these irrational moments, where my brain falls back in the first instance to Mormon teachings happen less and less, but I'm finding they irritate me more when they do happen, like this morning.

Seriously brain, WTF?

(Cross posted to exmormon)

Last Monday red_pill was down for a visit, so we did the touristy thing and went to Wildwood to see all the cute animals.

We started off at Canterbury Asda, where Phil got some new jeans and I went all arty on the place with my camera.

( See my arty turn )

From there we proceeded to Wildwood. We chose Wildwood on the grounds that I've been before and Phil has been dying to see the cute British animals they have there for over a year. I took loads of pictures, but lots had to be deleted as they were mostly very good pictures of fences or perspex windows ;) Some of the pictures aren't as clear as I'd like them to be, but they were all taken through fences or windows, so I don't think they're too bad, given the circumstances and my lack of skill :)

( All the signs had a badger theme: )

( We also found a sign that clearly needed fixing - the 'preferred habitat' and 'favourite food' sections had obviously become switched at some point: )

We saw lots of animals on our travels including (but not limited to):
( A red fox. )

( Water birds of various types. )

( Cranes (at least, I think this is a Crane ;)) )

( Sleeping Arctic Foxes. )

( Wild horses. )

( Various types of Deer. I think this one is Fallow Deer. )

( Tawny Owls. )

( A sleeping polecat. )

( Sleeping Badgers. )

( A weasel - at least, I'm fairly sure it's a weasel. Getting a clear picture of it was extremely difficult. It's extremely fast and agile. )

Brief comedy interlude:
What's the difference between a Stoat and a Weasel?
( I'm so funny )

( A sleeping Lynx. )

( Wolves. These were also difficult to get pictures of. I never realised how quick they were before - they all came out slightly blurry. )

( Sheep. )

( And Black Rats. I'm rather pleased with this picture, which was a complete fluke. )

Of course, there were lots of other animals we saw, but those are my best pictures. For the rest, see here.

( Here you see the Philip Overal ('reddus pillus') in his natural habitat. )

( Also on a swing... )

( ...and a mini-zipwire. )

We got told off shortly after that picture was taken by an eight year old who told us that the playground was only for children. We couldn't find any signs to say so though, so I have a clear conscience :). I also had a go on the zipwire. T'was good fun, even if my first go was with my eyes shut and I wouldn't let Phil give me a push off ;)

( This is always good advice: )

( Some camera and lens porn (SFW - not actual porn) for camera geeks: )

( Philip and Little Bunny Foo-Foo pose for a picture: )

( It turned out that he had worn his dressing gown to Wildwood. Arthur Dent's influence on his childhood and later life can not be overstated. )

We had lunch at The Parrot (the pub formerly known as Simple Simon's). Pictures here. Food was lovely :)

Finally we explored the River Stour a little.

( It was a beautiful spring day, with the sky reflecting in the river. )

( Spring is truly springing: )

( Some cool throwbacks to the time when there was a mill on this particular section of the river: )

( Phil got very close to the river in search of pictures. Unfortunately he didn't fall in. That might have been funny. )

It was a really nice day :)

Asda.
Wildwood.
The Parrot.
The River Stour.
Phil's pictures of the day.

I couldn't sleep, so I made this:



Sorry about the picture quality, I took it with my camera phone cos I went to use my proper camera and found that the battery was flat (now on charge) and I was too impatient to wait for it to be ready. I'm very pleased with myself for working out how to stick them all together in Paint Shop though :)

Might make a better quality one if I can be bothered.

Picture is of the cover of my GGB copy of The Chalet School Reunion. It has been annotated according to the key on the last page of that edition.

I'm heading to Goole (not to be confused with Google which is what I nearly always type by accident >.<) in Yorkshire very shortly with no1typo for a few days to visit relatives. I probably shan't be online, but I'll be contactable on my mobile (see the contact details post for my number [friendslocked]). I shall also probably be tweeting. This is me on Twitter.

Have a lovely few days people :) Write lots of interesting things for me to read when I get back!

Typical, that on the day the Government withdraws the plan to keep MPs expenses secret my MP should write back to me about voting against the proposed measure.

For good measure, I'm putting a copy of his reply here. Bits in italics were handwritten and not always very clear ;)

( Letter from Julian Brazier )

In other news, should you have any spare cash lying around (I know that this is unlikely given the current economic climate) and fancy putting it towards a cool cause, the National Railway Museum in York are trying to gather funds so they can finish their restoration of The Flying Scotsman. "Steam our Scotsman" - the campaign to raise money to finish the restoration.

For those of you who like taking off ladies bras:



From here

I finally got round to photographing and uploading more pictures from "From Vision to Reality", as well as rephotographing those that were already there so they are better quality. They are here for those who want to look :) I've also made a new LJ icon.

ION: I went to see The Dark Knight this evening at Ashford. Twas good. Won't say any more though in case of spoilers.

I found this link earlier: "He Took A Polaroid Every Day Until The Day He Died".

"Yesterday I came across a slightly mysterious website — a collection of Polaroids, one per day, from March 31, 1979 through October 25, 1997. There’s no author listed, no contact info, and no other indication as to where these came from. So, naturally, I started looking through the photos. I was stunned by what I found."

Go look - it's well worth it.

I am currently suffering from pancake overdose, having had a three course pancake meal (started with pancakes with OJ and sugar, main was pancakes with cheddar cheese, pudding was pancakes with chocolate sauce and ice cream!) After that I doubt I'll be eating them again much before next Shrove Tuesday ;)

I spent the afternoon playing with my new camera, and took the opportunity to take lots of pictures of our two gerbils which we've had for about four months now but which I have not blogged about before.

Pictures of our gerbils, Stan and Nibbler. Stan is the caramel one, and named after a Canadian folk singer called Stan Rogers. Nibbler is the grey (and he does have red eyes - it's not just my crappy photography! ;)) and I named him. Which is possibly why he isn't named after a Canadian folk singer! I don't think they loved me very much for taking pictures though - after a while they went and hid in the back corner of their tank!

( Stan and Nibbler )

By the way, before anyone else pastes me the URL - I have seen the BBC's "Mormon" story about the Preston Temple/MTC. My response is at the bottom of this LJ entry for anyone who is interested.

Finally, a meme, stolen from hopeful_rose.



You are breakfasty, like a pile of pancakes on a Sunday morning that have just the right amount of syrup, so every bite is sweet perfection and not a soppy mess. You are a glass of orange juice that's cool, refreshing, and not overly pulpy. You are the time of day that's just right for turning the pages of a newspaper, flipping through channels, or clicking around online to get a sense of how the world changed during the night. You don't want to stumble sleepily through life, so you make a real effort to wake your brain up and get it thinking. You feel inspired to accomplish things (whether it's checking something off your to-do list or changing the world), but there's plenty of time for making things happen later in the day. First, pancakes.

It's great because it talks about Pancakes. On pancake day! Hurrah!

Last night I saw the most recent Wulffmorgenthaler and it amused me. As it was related to women's health somewhat and I found it amsuing I posted it to vaginapagina here late last night and went off to bed. I woke up this morning to a whole bunch of comments (how I read them) basically attacking me for posting something racist and being priviledged because I didn't notice any racial undertones. Now I feel awful. I didn't even notice that the female character was coloured in any way. Does this make me racist or something in some way?

Advice/thoughts? As I said, I feel really awful and I'm looking for some reassurance or something. I'm starting to wonder if I'm missing a huge sensitive part of my brain... :/

(If you've already replied on IRC, don't feel you have to reply again ;))

Omg. Heath Ledger is dead?

Feeling rather shocked now. He was only four years older than me. Deaths of actors/singers/whatever don't usually bother me, but... woah.

I'm currently watching the musical version of The War of the Worlds in concert, conducted by Jeff Wayne himself (available here on DVD) and it's brilliant to watch (with the possible exception of the freaky head of Richard Burton). The martian's machines are just right, exactly how I imagined them :D Not all silly like the Tom Cruise stupidness.

The bit that is actually making my heart swell with pride and excitement (probably as a violin player myself with several years of orchestra playing behind me) is seeing the strings sections playing with their bows perfectly in synch - using the same amounts of the bow, going in the same direction as each other as exactly the same time. It's just an awesome sight (and as a strings player I appreciate how difficult it is ;))

I'm also rather impressed with their magical digital music/electronic music stands. So much easier and neater than the (necessarily) dog eared copies and crappy fally down music stands I had to deal with.

I'm currently watching the musical version of The War of the Worlds in concert, conducted by Jeff Wayne himself (available here on DVD) and it's brilliant to watch (with the possible exception of the freaky head of Richard Burton). The martian's machines are just right, exactly how I imagined them :D Not all silly like the Tom Cruise stupidness.

The bit that is actually making my heart swell with pride and excitement (probably as a violin player myself with several years of orchestra playing behind me) is seeing the strings sections playing with their bows perfectly in synch - using the same amounts of the bow, going in the same direction as each other as exactly the same time. It's just an awesome sight (and as a strings player I appreciate how difficult it is ;))

I'm also rather impressed with their magical digital music/electronic music stands. So much easier and neater than the (necessarily) dog eared copies and crappy fally down music stands I had to deal with.

For previous posts mentioning see: here, here, and here (the latter includes all good links on the site).

My brother red_pill saw the following in the Coulsdon and Purley Advertiser back in November and asked mum (no1typo) to save it for me when I came at Christmas. I have finally got around to not only taking pictures of the spread and uploading them, but also blogging about them ;) The feature is mainly about the future of the site, with a couple of things thrown in about the past.

( Cane Hill feature in the Coulsdon and Purley Advertiser )

By the way, I still own canehill.co.uk, which I really want to get some actual content up on. Suggestions about what to put up? At the moment I'm considering just a list of links, like the ones in the third LJ post I mention at the top.

Someone who works at NHS Direct writes about some beauty product related injuries in men. I particularly like number one. Brilliant :D

My favourite ever XKCD. It's funny cos it's true. The days I have wasted clicking through wikipedia links after looking something up and ending up with 20 tabs open on incredibly diverse subjects.

The result when a third grader with a shaky grasp of maths was asked to "Draw a triangle, CAT, with one right angle". Fantastic :D Go take a look. Seriously cute too :D

Finally, courtesy of lisaofdoom:

In other news, I want it to snow *lots* today.

A sketch in BBC One comedy Little Britain which showed a woman urinating uncontrollably in a shop has been criticised by an incontinence charity.

Saw that coming as soon as I knew which new characters would be appearing. Not surprised at all ;) Hvae to say I agree much more with the charity than with the BBC who state that "the sketch was not offensive as it was not grounded in reality."

Hmm.

A sketch in BBC One comedy Little Britain which showed a woman urinating uncontrollably in a shop has been criticised by an incontinence charity.

Saw that coming as soon as I knew which new characters would be appearing. Not surprised at all ;) Hvae to say I agree much more with the charity than with the BBC who state that "the sketch was not offensive as it was not grounded in reality."

Hmm.

Very interesting link, especially for sci-fi geeks.

Ta for the link lisaofdoom :)

Those of you who get pissed off at politics would do best to ignore this one ;)

Today ex-MP Brian Sedgemore defected from Labour to the Liberal Democrats. I didn't really pay much attention to this story to begin with cos I didn't really care. Then metamoof pasted the link to his last speech in Parliament which was against Prevention of Terrorism Bill. I read it through and developed a whole hearted respect for this man. The speech is very strong stuff. It's certainly more than a little bit emotive.

( The text of the speech )

I was really surprised. At the advanced age of 21 I am incredibly cynical about parliamentary debates and get easily bored by them, but reading this speech made my hair stand on end.

He compares the system of justice in this country to being akin to the one that "found favour with the South African Government at the time of apartheid", but for me the most powerful connotations come from a paragraph further down the page where he states: "Many Members have gone nap on the matter. They voted: first, to abolish trial by jury in less serious cases; secondly, to abolish trial by jury in more serious cases; thirdly, to approve an unlawful war; fourthly, to create a gulag at Belmarsh; and fifthly, to lock up innocent people in their homes. It is truly terrifying to imagine what those Members of Parliament will vote for next.I can describe all that only as new Labour's descent into hell, which is not a place where I want to be."

For me this conjures up images of the Nazi state, possibly because of the things I have been reading at the moment (including Lawrence Rees' excellent "Auschwitz: The Nazis and the Final Solution"), but it brings up a theme that is touched upon by book after book, time after time. The erosion of the rights of the Jews in Germany were so gradual that it seemed that to ride it out and wait was the best course. It couldn't last, people told themselves, things would get better and they wouldn't get much worse. History tells us these people were wrong, but hindsight is a beautiful thing. I will admit the analogy is somewhat harsh, but it also shows us what a dangerous road we are starting on.

Our Human Rights are being chipped away at so slowly that we barely notice it in the name of freedom from fear. First this right is eroded, then that, and then another. If this continues one day we will have nothing left. I want to say, here and now, that the attacks on the 11th September 2001 made me no more afraid of the world around me than I was before. In the wake of all that has happened since I have become more afraid of the actions of our government, at home and abroad, and that of the US than I have those of terrorists.

Something in Mr Sedgemore's speech has touched a chord with me. I will be voting in this election and I will be voting against the party that has eroded my rights as a human and as a citizen. I will be voting against the party that took us into a war I did not support under the premise of a lie. I will be voting against the party that has time and again shown themselves to be untrustworthy.

I feel motivated to vote, and I will not be denied my oportunity to speak out, even if it is what others proclaim as "a wasted vote" or "a vote that will help the Conservatives win".

I will use my vote to make my stand.

Those of you who get pissed off at politics would do best to ignore this one ;)

Today ex-MP Brian Sedgemore defected from Labour to the Liberal Democrats. I didn't really pay much attention to this story to begin with cos I didn't really care. Then metamoof pasted the link to his last speech in Parliament which was against Prevention of Terrorism Bill. I read it through and developed a whole hearted respect for this man. The speech is very strong stuff. It's certainly more than a little bit emotive.

( The text of the speech )

I was really surprised. At the advanced age of 21 I am incredibly cynical about parliamentary debates and get easily bored by them, but reading this speech made my hair stand on end.

He compares the system of justice in this country to being akin to the one that "found favour with the South African Government at the time of apartheid", but for me the most powerful connotations come from a paragraph further down the page where he states: "Many Members have gone nap on the matter. They voted: first, to abolish trial by jury in less serious cases; secondly, to abolish trial by jury in more serious cases; thirdly, to approve an unlawful war; fourthly, to create a gulag at Belmarsh; and fifthly, to lock up innocent people in their homes. It is truly terrifying to imagine what those Members of Parliament will vote for next.I can describe all that only as new Labour's descent into hell, which is not a place where I want to be."

For me this conjures up images of the Nazi state, possibly because of the things I have been reading at the moment (including Lawrence Rees' excellent "Auschwitz: The Nazis and the Final Solution"), but it brings up a theme that is touched upon by book after book, time after time. The erosion of the rights of the Jews in Germany were so gradual that it seemed that to ride it out and wait was the best course. It couldn't last, people told themselves, things would get better and they wouldn't get much worse. History tells us these people were wrong, but hindsight is a beautiful thing. I will admit the analogy is somewhat harsh, but it also shows us what a dangerous road we are starting on.

Our Human Rights are being chipped away at so slowly that we barely notice it in the name of freedom from fear. First this right is eroded, then that, and then another. If this continues one day we will have nothing left. I want to say, here and now, that the attacks on the 11th September 2001 made me no more afraid of the world around me than I was before. In the wake of all that has happened since I have become more afraid of the actions of our government, at home and abroad, and that of the US than I have those of terrorists.

Something in Mr Sedgemore's speech has touched a chord with me. I will be voting in this election and I will be voting against the party that has eroded my rights as a human and as a citizen. I will be voting against the party that took us into a war I did not support under the premise of a lie. I will be voting against the party that has time and again shown themselves to be untrustworthy.

I feel motivated to vote, and I will not be denied my oportunity to speak out, even if it is what others proclaim as "a wasted vote" or "a vote that will help the Conservatives win".

I will use my vote to make my stand.

Ben poked me at this really excellent account of Apollo13 and how mission control got the crew back this morning. A really excellent story, well worth the read :D

I've updated my guide to screen and irssi and added a copy of my irssi config to my website.

A review of H2G2 (very uncomplimentary) can be found here. A longer one with spoilers in is here. Don't click on the wrong one and then blame me. :P

Mmmm - geekery :D

Zero progress on essays though :(

Apparently the new variable fees may boost student debt

Wow.

Wish I'd thought of that... *rolls eyes*

roflmao :D