Monthly Archives: November 2008

An awesome coincident

By terje | Published: November 23, 2008
So I’m sitting in my room, working on my linguistics home exam, and I’m trying to explain why the verb paint in the sentence his father was painting a picture is not the same verb as the paint in the sentence his father never painted again, right? My line of resoning is the kind I [...]
Posted in Awe, Coincidents, Collections, Education, English, Glee, Goosebumps!, Hodge-podge rambling, Hope, Impressions, Language, Links, Megalomania, Music, My microcosmos, Optimism, Pessimism, Pleasant surprises, Potential, Pride, Procrastination, Rant, Videos, Weird stuff, Whoa, Words, Work, Yay!, lol | 5 Comments

When I first read this, I imagined for a moment that 1204 and 1453 had been nothing but bad dreams. Reality dawing on me felt like a fist in my guts

By terje | Published: November 21, 2008
“Constantinople was an impregnable city …” — Robert B. Kebric, Roman People (4th edition), epilogue.
Posted in A Moistening of the Eyes, Greek stuff, Grief, Hallucinations, Hist2125, History, Hope, Irony, Language, Literature, Love, Medieval stuff, Misery, Nostalgia, Oh noes!, Pain, Quote of the day, Regret, Roman stuff, Wistfulness | 3 Comments

The Matrix

By terje | Published: November 20, 2008
Just watched The Matrix, but seeing as I’ve already reviewed this movie somewhere else on this blog, I’m going to limit myself to pointing out how much the whole Matrix/human batteries thing seems like something out of Marx. You’ve got your people, right, who can be likened to either the people in Marxist theory in general, [...]
Posted in Ambiguity, Art, Awe, Bliss, Coincidents, Goosebumps!, Hodge-podge rambling, Karl Marx, Movies, Old Heroes, Pleasant surprises, Politics, Revelations, Review, Speculative fiction, Weird stuff, What I Learned Today, Whoa, Yay!, lol | 6 Comments

Interview with the Vampire

By terje | Published: November 19, 2008
Man, I did not until a few seconds ago realise what an inane title Interview with the Vampire really is; it is scary to see just how much an article can matter… Anyway, I had my sister over for dinner a couple of days ago, and we watched this thing, mainly because we both remembered the [...]
Posted in Annoyance, Boredom, Death, Disappointment, Language, Links, Literature, Misery, Movies, Pain, Panic, Review, Speculative fiction, Weird stuff, lol, meh. | 2 Comments

The priorities of the people

By terje | Published: November 19, 2008
“In the year of his tribunate (58 B.C.), Clodius made the ordinary people of the city of Rome (plebs urbana) a significant power in politics for the first time. By comparison, the exile and return of Cicero (58/57 B.C.) was a second-rate phenomenon that was of primary concern only to Cicero himself, who had a [...]
Posted in Hist2125, History, Quote of the day, Roman stuff, lol | 3 Comments

The Histories by Herodotus

By terje | Published: November 18, 2008
[Approximately 435 BCE] 2003. Translated by Aubrey de Sélincourt (1954). Introduction and notes by John Marincola (1996, 2003). 600 pages of main text. 166 pages of paratext.
Posted in A Praise Chorus, Art, Awe, Boredom, Collections, Conflicting emotions, Education, Glee, Gloating, Great Expectations, Greek stuff, History, Impressions, Literature, Loki, Pimping, Pleasant surprises, Pride, Recommendations, Review, Strategy/Plans | 3 Comments

The Gilded Chain by Dave Duncan

By terje | Published: November 18, 2008
1998. 396 pages. Eos Fantasy Paperback. First published novel in the Tales of the King’s Blades series. In the kingdom of Chivial, it is the task of the Loyal and Ancient Order of the King’s Blades to supply the king and his chosen servants with bodyguards. Boys, unwanted troublemakers for the most part, are taken in around the age of [...]
Posted in Collections, GRRM, Literature, Optimism, Pleasant surprises, Recommendations, Review, Speculative fiction, Yay! | 11 Comments

For better or worse, you just don’t get life stories like this anymore (Or, the only thing missing is piracy)

By terje | Published: November 10, 2008
“Raised in an Ibo village (in modern Nigeria), Olaudah Equiano (ca 1745-1797) was kidnapped by African raiders and slod into slavery. He survived the horrors of the Middle Passage to the New World, where an English naval officer bought him ito serve as a cabin boy and renamed him Gustavus Vassa, after a sixteenth-century Swedish [...]
Posted in Awe, Conflicting emotions, Education, English, History, Impressions, Literature, Misery, Nostalgia, Quote of the day, Relief, What I Learned Today, Whoa, Wistfulness, Words | 7 Comments

The Broken Sword by Poul Anderson

By terje | Published: November 10, 2008
1954. 274 pages. Gollancz Fantasy Masterworks. Paperback. Skafloc, kidnapped when he was a child and raised by the elves, received the sword Thyrfing as a naming day present from the Aesir. This was considered a perverse gift by most, as the sword has been broken by Thor to prevent it from being used to cut the roots of Yggdrasil [...]
Posted in Collections, Literature, Medieval stuff, Norse stuff, Poetry, Recommendations, Religiousity, Review, Speculative fiction | 16 Comments

I was, in fact, not aware of this

By terje | Published: November 9, 2008
“To Athens and Sparta Xerxes sent no demand for submission because of what happened to the messngers whom Darius had sent on a previous occasion: at Athens they were thrown into the pit like criminals, at Sparta they were pushed into a well — and told that if they wanted earth and water [signs of [...]
Posted in Awe, Goosebumps!, Greek stuff, History, New Heroes, Quote of the day, What I Learned Today, Whoa, lol | 23 Comments