Interesting Snippets

There are some quotes from another story in the anthology I mentioned in one of my many posts yesterday. This story is called Death and the Lady and was written by Judith Tarr.

Spoken dryly: "Women are cursed enough by nature, weak and frail as all the wise men say they are; and made, it's said, for men's use and little else. Sometimes they don't take kindly to it. It's a flaw in them, I'm sure."

I can imagine at least three characters from Firefly saying these words... Zoe and Annara definitely, at least, would speak like this. Maybe it was the dry humor it was written in, where the character doesn't expect the man she is speaking to to understand that it isn't being said seriously, with any belief in the words or sentiments. Firefly was full of that kind of chatter.

"Is that all you can do?" First woman snapped at her. "Hide and cower and whine, and make great noises about fighting back, and give in at the drop of a threat?"

"What else can I do?" Second woman snapped back.

"Think," said First woman.

Though I know it is absurd, I keep imagining female snapping turtles having this conversation. Yes. That's right. Snapping turtles. They make great, surly friends if you can find them. Some turtles are surly without being snapping turtles, species-wise.

And finally:

"There's no more can't in killing yourself than in killing someone else. It's all won't, and a good fat measure of pity-me."

Yeah. That says it all puf_almighty. Why do people talk about killing as "giving in" to something? Because of that quote, right there. You make a choice. Whether that choice is in an acknowledged surface thought or not - a person makes a decision about these things. Which is why a person who truly knows themselves, who knows their own moral/ethical strengths and weaknesses, can see the truth for what it is and not make the excuses that are rampant in our world. Deflection or avoidance of responsibility is something that I haven't always been aware of... That kind of discernment takes time to learn, more or less depending on whether you have a proper guide or not.

Everyone has moments of weakness. The important thing is to disallow weakness in making decisions on everything, especially those decisions that wouldn't just impact your own life but the lives of those around you. The wider the impact, the more serious the repercussions, the worse off the world is when you make the wrong choice.

For CoB

Interesting how the lives of (unethical) hackers and PI's overlap?


A Private Eye’s Legacy
Pellicano's conviction and the future of snooping
Eugene O’Donnell
Newsweek Web Exclusive
Updated: 11:43 AM ET May 21, 2008

As the dust settles in the aftermath of the conviction of Anthony Pellicano, self-styled "Private Eye to the Stars," some are wondering: How many of his kind are out there? How many rogue private detectives are moving about the country intimidating people, eavesdropping and deceiving others into providing them with off-limits information? And what impact, if any, will his conviction have on the shadowy world of high-end surveillance he inhabited?
( Read more... )

Could be an interesting read:

From one of the reviewers at the amazon listing:

"The premise of the book is simple - Megan Hustad has read a ludicrous number of self-help business books and has put together a book of the high points of a number of the unlikely ones, with each chapter focusing on a certain kind of idea and a book or author who is iconic to it. A few of these are familiar but dated, such as Carnegie's 'How to Win Friends and Influence People' or Covey's 'Seven Habits of Highly Effective People' but most of them are either much more obscure or far more unlikely to be useful. 'Sex and the Single Girl'. 'Dress For Success'. The etiquette writings of Emily Post. Even Donald Trump gets a nod.

The book walks a marvelous line between enthusiasm and criticism. Some chapters, especially dedicated to older or more obscure sources, seem to focus on uncovering lost jewels. Other chapters, usually dealing with more modern books, are all about cutting away the bulk of it for the one or two choice morsels inside. The author has no love of Stephen Covey, for example, and restricts her analysis so a single habit, but drills down into it very seriously."

Details about the book are further revealed in an interview Ms. Hustad did with Newsweek:

Hate Your Job?
Advice from the author of a new book, 'How to Be Useful.'
Daniel Gross
Newsweek Web Exclusive
Updated: 3:45 PM ET May 21, 2008

Just in time for college graduation comes a career guide for the smart liberal-arts grad who believes such guides are nothing more than a pile of self-help mush: "How to Be Useful: A Beginner's Guide to Not Hating Work," by Megan Hustad, 33, a history major at the University of Minnesota, and former book editor at Random House and Basic Books.

"How to Be Useful" draws on a century's worth of career advice--from Andrew Carnegie and Dale Carnegie (not related) to Helen Gurley Brown and Stephen Covey. But Hustad's book is more than an I-read-this-so-you-won't-have-to exercise. She believes there is plenty of career gold in these mines, and she intersperses her readings with anecdotes from the contemporary workplace. Hustad spoke with NEWSWEEK's Daniel Gross about the clichés of the career canon, what it takes to get ahead in the "creative industries" and the delicate art of managing your first boss. Excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: So, who is the target audience?
Megan Hustad: Recent grads, twentysomething or older, who would normally never pick up a book of good advice. I wanted to stop these lessons from being lost to a whole subset of pretentious liberal-arts grads like I once was.
( Read more... )

On the whole, I'm planning to at least sit down at the cafe in my local bookstore to browse through it. I wonder if she mentions thank-you letters at all? It could be an interesting read, or it could be dross. I won't have to pay for it if it seems like the latter, going the cafe route. I'm also wondering why it is being specifically aimed at recent graduates. What about career changers? People coming back to the workforce after whatever reasons?

I've got a handful more articles lined up to read and some research about fuel efficient vehicles pending. Perhaps you will see another post or two today, perhaps not. I'm almost afraid to look at yesterday on the calendar and see how many posts I made. Nooooo... That's not a hint to go looking for them, read them, and comment on them at ALL. :D

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

One wonders if this product is real... Any of the people on my f-list in the London area want to find the on-the-ground store in Covent Garden and tell me if the chocolate anus is real?

via typefiend

I like how one of the testimonials is from a couple that held an Inappropriate Foods Party, to which I'm sure someone else brought the South Park Chef's Chocolate, Salty Balls.

What would any of you bring to an inappropriate foods party if you were to go to one of these shindigs? What would you consider an inappropriate food?

I am all of a sudden reminded of the second Indiana Jones movie... that dinner party scene...

Tweets for Today

• 17:36 Hahahaha! Am I going to have to pick you up? #

Tweeter: Deactivate!

Poem #2

A Paean to Cephallonia


Milky emerald waters, bedded in limestone
The pure, pellucid quality of the light;
complete immersion in the somnolent
pace of the thirty-one square mile island.
Pilgrims carry the ill
over the blackened, gnarled, olive-wood form
of St. Gerasimos’ corpse.
Oleanders flower, and bougainvillea froths
overhead.
Floor marked out with stones;
Hold a panegyric ballos dance,
With tricky kicks, smacks, claps and flourishes.
The men leading, the women circling
with handkerchiefs.
So picturesque, with a background tinkle
of goat bells.