sifting through Monday, 14 June 2010 link

Another tattoo session on the 4th. Since the design is basically done, we jumped right in to the inking. Needles started at 10:30am, and by 4pm I was very much over it. We finished the interior fill of the tentacles, and got two of the tentacles shaded before I had to stop. Photos available on flickr; last session is booked in four weeks' time. A week later, most of the scabbing is off, and it's looking very crisp indeed. Nice the house

I drop Maggie off at creche in the mornings. She has some little friends who come over to say hi. One of them, A, is fascinated by the flesh tunnels in my ears (currently at 15mm, so very clear daylight through them). Every time I see her, she comes up and sticks her fingers through my ear and then asks me about them. It's very cute. Mind you, if you want to see happy, try dropping off a pile of reptile magazines (long story) in the middle of a group of 4-year old boys. "Crocodiles!" came the cry, and there was much happiness.

For various reasons, a moderate chunk of my childhood/adolescence was dropped off in my living room last week. I got to spend a happy evening looking through boxes of stuff that I'd liked enough to actually bother putting into boxes, but not enough to take with me a couple of moves ago. Half of it went in the rubbish, most of the rest went straight to St Vinny de Paul (they're more politically acceptable than the Salvos), and some serious memories were unearthed. There's a box under the house now, labelled "Star Wars Stuff". A more innocent age. That is, prior to Episode 1.

The other day I was cycling to work in swingeing wind and rain, thinking "Well, this sucks." I went around Balaena Bay and someone was going for a swim. There's always someone madder than you.

  ah, profanity, my old friend Tuesday, 1 June 2010 link

You didn't ask for it, so here it is: the Christian review of Avatar. Mostly, this is actually not too bad - obviously, I disagree with many of the basic strictures of the reviewer's worldview. But two things really annoyed me.

Firstly, he uses the word "dictums". Anyone who does this needs to be taken outside and given a good kicking. It combines pretension with ignorance (the plural of "dictum" is "dicta"). If you're going to be an ass, at least get it right.

Secondly, he says that the use of profanity in the movie "reveals a limited artistic ability to express frustration". I've seen this one a bit before, and it's always annoyed me. The assertion that swearing shows a lack of imagination. Frankly, I believe the key to communication is brevity. Simplicity. A common set of words. I like the goals of the Plain English campaign. And I have a large vocabulary; there are so many, many beautiful words in the world. But sometimes "fuck" is just the right one. Most of the time, actually. And I don't know about the rest of you, but when I drop something on my foot, I don't introspect and come out with a detailed imprecation comparing the current situation to an obscene classical Greek myth; I say "motherfucker!" in a loud voice and get on with things.