[It's] about going back to space, because it's waiting for us, and it's where we're meant to be.
-- Warren Ellis, from his introduction to Orbiter
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Schrödinger's Dog - Orbit(2009)
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Direct download: 31mb .zip
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Sometimes, when you work on creative things, something turns out to be really special, maybe even a highlight of your career. For me, ORBIT is one of those things.
I'd write more, but I'm very tired. A few quick links: atomic traveller has freeware algorithmic music generators; moonbell creates generative sound from images of the moon's surface; Digital Expressionism has copyleft fractal art, which formed the basis of ORBIT's cover; making music hacks your hearing; Nicolas Fournel has some interesting music and sound tools; and @RichardDevine is where I got a lot of these links from. On a more thematic tack, Space Quotes and Space Quotations have a lot of things to say about why space is important, the spirit of which very much informed the creation of ORBIT.
- Location:Safewatch
- Mood:
recumbent - Music:Childs - Post:Seele
As my prayers became more intense and deeper, I had less and less to say. At last I was completely silent. I transformed, which is probably an even greater contradiction to talking; I transformed into someone listening. At first, I thought to pray was to talk. But I learned that to pray is not just to be silent, but to listen. It is like this: To pray does not mean to listen to oneself talking. To pray is to become silent, and be silent and wait, until the one who prays can hear God.
-- Søren KierkegaardIt is difficult for a person who is too materially affected to understand the personal nature of the Supreme Absolute Truth. [...] Consequently, they consider the Supreme to be impersonal. And because they are too materially absorbed, the conception of retaining their personality after liberation from matter frightens them. When they are informed that spiritual life is also individual and personal, they become afraid of becoming persons again, and so they naturally perfer a kind of merging into the impersonal void.
-- Srila Prabhupada, Bhagavad-Gita As It Is (4.10, purport)God is the exalted father, and the longing for the father is the root of all religion.
-- Sigmund Freud[Bhishma] is saying that both theistic and non-theistic can lead to salvation; the critical consideration is the sincerity with which they are practiced—and that they are pursued with an ardent desire to attain the Supreme. So whether we are talking of [...] Buddhism, or [...] Vaishnavism, we can see that the wise Bhishma counsels that we should have respect for all such paths to Truth—for each leads, in good time, to the Supreme destination.
-- Steven J. Rosen, From Nothingness to Personhood: A Collection of Essays on Buddhism from a Vaishnava-Hindu PerspectiveIf I saw no signs of a divinity, I would fix myself in denial. If I saw everywhere the marks of a Creator, I would repose peacefully in faith. But seeing too much to deny Him, and too little to assure me, I am in a pitiful state, and I would wish a hundred times that if a God sustains nature it would reveal Him without ambiguity.
-- Blaise Pascal, PenséesIn summary, our species' awareness of inevitable death placed such a strong pressure on our cerebral (cognitive) evolutions that at some point during the latter stages of hominid evolution, nature selected those lineages which posessed a built-in predisposition to believe in or perceive an alternate reality, one that supersedes the limitations of this finite physical realm which can only offer us pain, suffering, and ultimately death. And so, a new reality was born in man, one which compelled our species to believe itself transcendent, to imagine that we are more, perhaps, than we actually are.
-- Matthew Alper, The 'God' Part of the Brain
( Read more, and please, I'd appreciate input. )
- Location:Safewatch
- Mood:
melancholy - Music:Unit - Your Arrival Is Our Arrival
On the gaming front, I've got a few more supplements for Forsaken, and it really is an excellent game. I'd be happy to either run or play it at some point, so hopefully I'll get the chance. More to the point, though, I managed to track down a second-hand copy of its old World of Darkness counterpart, Werewolf: The Apocalypse; while I already had the second and revised editions of the game, along with maybe 80% or more of the supplements, I'd wanted a copy of the first edition for a while but never got around to doing anything about it, and now I finally have one - it dates from way back in 1991. (I'd also like the revised live-action rules, the Laws of the Wild, but the newer edition of that is still pretty expensive, even second-hand; I guess it's one of the rarer ones to come by.) As I've mentioned previously, I'm hoping to get hold of some more of the old Werewolf supplements, either through PDF or buying off friends.
The other gaming news that probably everyone has heard by now is that the werewolf-like Worgen as playable characters in World of Warcraft has been confirmed, as posted by everyone in the world ever. I used to play World of Warcraft a long time ago, and I quit just before Burning Crusade came out; apparently there's been a ton of improvements, and with this new expansion it looks to be even better -- so I'm finding myself tempted to try it again, although the outlay for the game and all three expansions will likely be steep. That being said, I mean holy crap you can play a werewolf for god's sake. That's enough of an incentive for me at least. There's also a few nice Worgen pictures in the concept art for Cataclysm, which is well worth checking out - though the Werewolf News post has all the Worgen concept art at a substantially higher resolution than the official site, for whatever reason. No word as of yet when the expansion's going to drop, though. (On the subject of art, check out this piece from Jerad Marantz - Creature Spot is a pretty neat art blog as a whole, too.)
Someone posted a link to this (werewolf cupcake! so cute!), and as a result I ended up searching Flickr for photos tagged "werewolf". In amongst all the Twilight related crap, there were a bunch of shots of this rather tasty fellow (sfw, pretty much) which made wading through all the other stuff almost worth it. For moving pictures, although the release date is slipping constantly, Werewolf News again comes up with the goods in the form of the Official Wolfman Trailer, which looks fucking awesome. I've got a few new werewolf movies to keep me occupied in the meantime, though; the first two, Big Bad Wolf and Wild Country, I got based on recommendations, and War Wolves just looked pretty entertaining for a low price - reviews aren't great, to say the least, but even cheesy werewolf flicks can be fun.In terms of books, I've ordered quite a range (though I'm still waiting on a couple to arrive). Obviously at first I went for the 'classics': Sabine Baring-Gould's 1865 Book of Werewolves, Elliot O'Donnell's Werwolves from 1912, and Montague Summers' 1933 classic, The Werewolf. As for more recent works, a long time ago an ex-partner got me Brad Steiger's rather unimpressive Werewolf Book; more interesting among modern works are Adam Douglas' The Beast Within (which the aforementioned ex had a copy of, but wouldn't give or sell it to me), Leonard R. N. Ashley's Complete Book of Werewolves, and perhaps most interesting of all is The Curse of the Werewolf by Chantal Bourgault du Coudray.
While all of the above are (broadly speaking) non-fiction, I did come across a couple of novels as well. I got one by Russian author Victor Pelevin (described by the Independent as the "Zen Buddhist Will Self of the former Evil Empire"), with the irresistable title of The Sacred Book of the Werewolf, and one that I'm sure I had recommended to me but I can't for the life of me think of where I heard about it, Lonely Werewolf Girl by Martin Millar. [edit: completely forgot to link to Lycanthrope Library, a kind of werewolf book review service; one recent entry memorably features a "gun-toting, lycanthropic nun".] I've also had some enjoyable graphic novels on the same subject; I picked up the recent miniseries of Werewolf by Night, with the titular character being an anti-hero at best; I must say I preferred The Astounding Wolf-Man, in which the character uses his abilities for good, a rarity in werewolf stories. The artwork's awesome too; Jason Howard posts some of his work over on deviantART.
It's also worth mentioning that I have a couple of books on Real Actual Wolves that I've got hold of via friends; I have Barry Lopez' seminal Of Wolves and Men, along with The Wolf Almanac by Robert H. Busch, apparently one of the best available on the subject. Finally, I -- perhaps unwisely, from my bank account's point of view at least -- searched eBay for 'werewolf', and found all sorts of interesting things. All I bought, though, was something that immediately caught my eye -- a pair of Tibetan silver (were)wolf head charms, as pictured. The price was low, and as I had a spare silver chain lying around, I've decided to give the other charm to - Location:Safewatch
- Mood:
predatory - Music:Flying Lotus - RobertaFlack
( A few weeks ago, though... (omg SFW images) )
Just as a couple of quick links (so I can close some tabs in Firefox), someone recommended to me using the free opensource vector graphics editor Inkscape for tattoo designs; I've downloaded it, but not tried it yet, though I'm told it's pretty good. A good place for designs (requires free registration) is Chopper Tattoo; I'm intending to go through it a bit more thoroughly when I have time.
- Location:Tsunami Studios
- Mood:
calm - Music:Ital Tek - Octa
Don't try to use what you learn from Buddhism to be a Buddhist; use it to be a better whatever-you-already-are.
-- The Dalai LamaWhen you know for yourselves These teachings are beneficial, these teachings are without fault, these teachings would be accepted by the wise, these teachings, when fully taken up, lead to well-being, to ease, you should live embracing those teachings.
-- The Buddha, Kesamutti SuttaWhile Param-Atman is never in doubt, the individual always lives in doubt. Because of this he is always wanting miracles to happen in order to establish his faith. But even if a miracle does happen and his faith is established once, that faith is shaken again and again by subsequent doubts, and he wants fresh and repeated miracles to re-establish it. He fails to realise that he is constantly living in the midst of the most wonderful miracle, the world itself.
-- Shantanand Saraswati, Good CompanyThough each washes equally as water, a well is not a pond, a pond is not a stream or a river, nor is a valley stream or a ditch a sea. As the Tathagata, the world's hero, is free in the Law, all the laws preached by him are also like this. Though preaching at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end all alike effectively wash off the delusions of living beings, the beginning is not the middle, and the middle is not the end. Preaching at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end are the same in expression but different from one another in meaning.
-- The Buddha, The Sutra of Innumerable MeaningsI do dimly perceive that whilst everything around me is ever changing and ever dying, there is underlying all that change a living power that is changeless, that holds all together, that creates, dissolves, and recreates. This informing power or spirit is God.
-- Mahatma Gandhi, Pathway to God
( Further musings. (Includes 2 SFW videos) )
To conclude, I'm barely much further in my thinking than I was before; I still consider myself a Buddhist, for whatever that's worth, although not everything makes sense to me at this point. I think ultimately that following the kind of practices that I do -- which, essentially, boil down to trying to be a good person -- can, at worst, do no harm; similarly, associating with others, be they Buddhist, Hindu, some other religion, or none, can (hopefully) only be of help to all parties. I hope by trying to explain these things to other people, whether that's by making posts like this, talking to people online or in person, or giving them books, that I do some good; I think more knowledge is always a good thing. In that spirit, I'd like to end with a few links which may be of interest both generally and for specific people. (My apologies to
- For
footpad, a number of Buddhist centres in Zurich; - For
gravecat, Diamond Way Buddhism and the FWBO Centre in Liverpool; - For
torque_tiger,
fubuki_, and
salith, although I've mentioned this many times, the FWBO Centre in Sheffield; - Some information on Buddhism for beginners (and sceptical Westerners);
- Introducing Buddhism: A Guide for Western Beginners, in the Zen tradition;
- And finally, a friend's insightful blog post on Religious Tolerance.
- Location:Muladhara
- Mood:
contemplative - Music:Psychic Ills - Meta
Since then, and in general since I last wrote, things have been fairly quiet. I've generally been feeling alright, though, and while things have been going more slowly than I'd like, I've managed to get some stuff done. I finished X-Men Origins: Wolverine (and will review that at some point), and I think I'm already used to my new phone -- it now has this snowleopard as a wallpaper, music from Lost Odyssey for the ringtone/message alert, and the theme from Persona 4 for the alarm. (It's awesome in a massively geeky way.)
Talking of massively geeky things, I've been given links to a couple of nifty sites. Manga Fox has, well, manga (foxes optional; though beware occasional ad redirects) for free, including some pretty popular series, and Crunchyroll does much the same thing for anime.
Finally, because it's Music Monday (at least on twitter), I figured I'd post a couple of links. Indie Paws is a blog with a good selection of posts and quite a substantial number of free mp3's, which is always a good thing. (Also, m'friend Mag [edit:
- Location:Safewatch
- Mood:
calm - Music:Puddle of Mudd - Blurry
Now for some more fun stuff, and not just vaguely geeky links that I'm sick of having open in Firefox. First up, I got a new and shiny phone -- the Sony Ericsson W302 -- and I've been playing with that a bit, although in a rather limited way as I lost the memory card that came with it (due to a rather forceful eject mechanism -- it went flying and the thing's the size of a fingernail) and my 4gb one hasn't arrived yet. I also had recommended to me ITC, which if I hadn't already bought a new computer, I would certainly take a look at. That being said, the NatAmi Project looks ambitious and interesting, if largely conjecture at this point.
Finally some geeky music stuff. First off,
Also, on IRC the other day there was some discussion of videogame music, and naturally the conversation eventually turned to OCRemix. After much discussion we came up with a very eclectic kind of top 9 -- it was a top 10 or 12 but some were a bit awful -- though these are in no particular order and should not be thought of as in any way authorative, being after all the choices of an arbitrary group of people on an IRC channel one afternoon. If anyone has any other recommendations, I'd genuinely like to hear them. There's some great talent out there. But without further preamble:
- Harmony - Dragon Song (Secret of Mana)
This is such an amazing track. Some beautiful guitar and synth work as well as original vocals. I never really played any of the Seiken Densetsu series, but I can totally agree with the feeling in the track -- even when games were pretty primitive in both audiovisual and technical terms, they could really get the imagination working and make you feel invested in them. - The Wingless - Godspeed (Star Fox)
This is another good one, though it's different in tone -- completely electronica, far as I can tell, but it's got a great ambience. It's long but the two parts come together really well. Again I never really played the game, but it manages to have that feeling of flight which is appropriate for, well, almost any space-combat game, but particularly made me think of the Wing Commander series. - Star Salzman - Pillar of Salt (Xenogears)
I really loved Xenogears; in all its overblown pretentiousness, it was one of the first really good post-Evangelion stories out there. Sadly I never managed to finish it (though I still own a copy) due to my memory card crapping out. Anyway, this track is all kinds of pretty. It manages to maintain the distinct style of the original and have a unique identity at the same time. The middle-eastern feel combined with the sci-fi ambience reminds me of the best aspects of Assassin's Creed, too, which is no bad thing. - Scott Peeples - Another Inspiration (Chrono Cross)
Now, Chrono Cross I actually finished, despite it being (like Xenogears) only ever available on import here. It quickly became a favourite, although in my life when I was playing it, it wasn't a great time for me. Without wanting to sound over the top, this track reminds me of that time; it's got that little melancholy edge while at the same time being really pretty. And man, getting the end boss with the colours in the proper order was hard. - Arkimedes - Dreaming While I Wake (Shenmue)
Shenmue was one of the reasons I bought a Dreamcast. I loved that game, even with all the flaws. It's a shame that the story was never really continued beyond Shenmue II, though obviously some of us still hold out hope that Sega will stop making awful Sonic sequels and go back to a franchise that has plenty of life left in it. Anyway. THis is kind of... not quite synth-pop, but it's got that 80's feel certainly. I love the original vocals on this. It reminds me a little of lo-fi stuff like Casiotone For The Painfully Alone, and that can only be a good thing. - ceili, Sephire - Snowfall on Forbidden Lands (Shadow of the Colossus)
I do not have words for how unbelievably pretty this is. If you only download one from this entirely arbitrary top 9, make it this one. SotC was a good candidate for the whole games-as-art thing, and this remix is the poster child for how awesome remixes of game music can be.
The last few are a bit more light-hearted, but no less good for it: - The Megas - The Annihilation of Monsteropolis (Mega Man 2)
This is basically rivalled only by The Protomen, who made a Megaman Rock Opera, and really it's pretty difficult to beat that. - Arkimedes - Fall From Above (You Can't Stop) (Halo)
If I did not include a Halo mix at some point,
nidonocu would kill me. This one I was a bit shaky about at first (the robot voice and the other vocals really shouldn't work), but somehow this manages to be pretty great. - Game Over - Little Mac's Confession (Punch-Out!!)
Don't let the pretty arpeggios in the intro fool you. This is from a Swedish band that does metal covers of Nintendo game music. If you think that sounds awesome then you are right.
I've been thinking of giving this kind of music a try, myself, though I'm not sure where to start -- I've only done a handful of remixes at all, and never really attempted anything with game music. One final related link, though I forget who I got it off: DA CHIP! is a series of chiptune reworkings of Daft Punk songs, and if that sounds like your kind of thing, then you should download it because it is free and made of all kinds of awesome.
Also? This video (SFW) shows a truly awesome Super Mario World ROMhack - no controller input at all after selecting the level. That is all.
[edit: oh yeah I forgot to add, Watchmen came out on DVD here yesterday so after some consideration I decided to order it, along with the Complete Motion Comic and the Tales of the Black Freighter animation; there's going to be a 5-disc edition in the US, but that seems to comprise basically a slightly extended director's cut of the film and the stuff I ordered, so not much point, even if it does get released here...]
- Location:Faerûn
- Mood:
geeky - Music:Filter - Soldiers Of Misfortune [Justin Eyerly]
( Friday )
There's two things I've noticed with
I've got another person to thank, too; Toroka (confusingly, he was also/previously known as Torque) for introducing us to each other, and for having been a good friend for more years than I care to count. With
- Location:Sukhavati
- Mood:
calm - Music:Casino Versus Japan - Moonlupe
( First, the tech... )
That ties in nicely with the roleplaying, as both series are often touted as inspiration for and/or examples of Exalted-level combat. While I'm still very interested in that game, and continue to acquire books for it, I've recently got (back?) into the new World of Darkness. I had the core rules, and (naturally) Werewolf: The Forsaken since the release of the latter, but until recently I had not really looked at the line at all. A few weeks ago I picked up another of the main 3 games, Mage: The Awakening; and on Wednesday, I was able to get hold of Vampire: The Requiem -- completing my collection of the core three games -- and Changeling: The Lost.
As of last week, we'd begun to play a Vampire game run by Miquel; it is thanks to his efforts and those of
I tried to find some places to get cheap roleplaying books from, and I was surprised to find Amazon had some good deals. I've ordered Promethean: The Created and Hunter: The Vigil to complete the set of new World of Darkness main books, along with 3 supplements for Werewolf and two for general World of Darkness use.
I'm vaguely considering going to the comic/gaming shops in the near future, possibly today, as I've not been in a very long time; it'll be interesting to see what they have.
(How am I affording this? Well, it was my birthday last week, and I am eternally grateful for generous relatives. Also? They let me have a credit card.)
- Location:Net Slum
- Mood:
geeky - Music:Juno Reactor & Don Davis - Navras

Nitai, ISKCON monk, giving a teaching from the Bhagavad-Gita
There are many Indian religious systems that involve strong devotion to the guru, and there are many adherents who totally dedicate their lives to spiritual practice. They are impressive. Mindful of the impermanence of this life, they put great effort into religious devotion. But only Buddhism sees the very apprehension of self to be faulty, and instead puts forth a view of selflessness.
-- His Holiness the XIVth Dalai Lama, Becoming Enlightened
( The Wednesday before last proved to be an interesting day. )
- Location:Jambudvipa
- Mood:
confused - Music:Susumu Yokota - Genshi
I know a kid who thinks he's hip hop cause he buys it
I know a kid who thinks he's hip hop cause he never buys shit
Underground or mainstream
Some are bound to change schemes.
-- Sage Francis, Underground For Dummies
So I'm listening to Sub.FM a lot lately -- I first saw it mentioned on Warren Ellis' twitter -- seeing as dubstep and its related spinoffs seem to be the in thing of late, and for once I actually like the genre. (There's also the more obviously-titled Dubstep.FM, but I'm not so keen on that one; DubTerrain is pretty neat though.) The quality of the stream's not brilliant, but in a conversation elsewhere there was some talk of audio enhancers. Normally I'm skeptical of these, but
( In which I ramble a bit about music and other cultural stuff. )
Finally a couple of arty type things that I rather like: Multicolr Search Lab lets you pick up to 10 colours and use them to navigate a selection from "10 million of the most 'interesting' Creative Commons images on Flickr". It's a nice idea. Also, New Math is all kinds of awesome; reminds me a bit of one of my favourite artists, Jenny Holzer.
- Location:Safewatch
- Mood:
tired - Music:DubTerrain.net
( Yes, this is a little geeky. )
Thanks to
Talking of PC stuff, I found a couple of useful sites for desktop backgrounds/wallpapers. I've had the most use from DesktopNexus, though 4scrape has some pretty neat stuff too.
As there's been some malware going around on Twitter lately, LongURL Mobile Expander is a pretty handy add-on that lets you see the full address for shortened URLs, in case of any doubt. I recall reading somewhere that people are substantially more likely to click links in a Twitter feed than in an email, despite such things not necessarily being any safer.
- Location:Net Slum
- Mood:
cheerful - Music:The Black Maria - Fool's Gold
Werewolves are lame.
Well, at least that was my logic.
I hate the damn things. I figure they're these hokey old holdovers from another age where we actually used to find such cartoony monsters scary. They've seeped into popular culture now. You'll be more likely to find them in romantic comedies and kid's cartoons. They've been neutered, so to speak. And let's face it, they were always the poor second cousin to the vampire.
So I was asked to adapt a screenplay into sequential art, dealing with werewolves, no doubt to help sell it as a movie... and I declined. I just didn't want to go there. Visually I'm just not into them, and couldn't see myself gettng enthused at all. All I could think of was Teen Wolf.
Then I got a letter from the Colorado department of corrections or some such, explaining to my publisher that another of my books [...] had been banned from their fine institutions [...]
But I got thinking. Prison, eh? I'd been watching a lot of prison documentaries at the time anyway and wow, there are some messed up people in some messed up places... and something clicked.
After that, this thing sort of wrote itself to a degree. I sincerely hope you like it and want to desperately thank you for picking this here graphic novel up in the first place.
Whatever you do, just don't drop the soap.
-- Ben Templesmith, preface to Welcome to Hoxford
( Needless to say... )
Finally, to inject a touch of humour, the last line of dialogue in this trailer for the godawful-looking Lesbian Vampire Killers ("Like an episode of 'Goosebumps' but with two swearing cretins") is... interesting... at least. And probably the only interesting thing about the film.
[edit: Thanks to Mr. Templesmith for linking here on his Twitter, and hi to anyone who came here via there... most unexpected.]
- Location:Safewatch
- Mood:
predatory - Music:Placebo - Every You Every Me (Infected By The Scourge Of The Earth Mix)
( Anyway, without further ado... )
- Location:Δ Hidden Forbidden Holy Ground
- Mood:
relaxed - Music:Sub.fm
( First up, and my favourite thing in ages... )
Finally, it's worth mentioning that I'm looking into expressing creativity in writing; two books I got recently, Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down The Bones (which treats writing as Zen practice), and The Ode Less Travelled, a book on writing poetry by the ever-lovely Stephen Fry, have made me think about giving it a try.
- Location:Tsunami Studios
- Mood:
geeky - Music:Twile - Spanish Cruiser
The Dalai Lama [...] states that one may practice the dharma by following the teachings and practices of non-Buddhist traditions such as Christianity, Islam, Judaism, or Hinduism. [...] In this sentiment he hearkens back to the historical Buddha, Śākyamuni. [...] As he was about to die, the Buddha was questioned by some of his students, who were concerned that after the master's death people might begin propounding doctrines that had not been spoken by the Buddha himself and that these people might tell others that their doctrines were the actual words of the Buddha. In reply, the Buddha told them, "Whatever is well-spoken is the word of the Buddha." In other words, if a particular teaching results in greater peace, compassion, and happiness, and if it leads to a lessening of negative emotions, then it can safely be adopted and practiced as dharma, no matter who originally propounded it.
-- John Powers, Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism
God creates our bodies, God bestows our nature. Inside and outside are both from God; how dare we derange them? We are within God, God is in our hearts; if we see the universe and emulate its purity, this is not different from the Great Way. If we have even a little selfish intent, we experience penalties that are not trivial.
The physical body is God-given nature; if you act in accord with God-given nature, you will spontaneously be free of the burden of human desires. Daily tasks are norms; act in obedience to the laws of God and there will be no mistaken excesses.
-- The Cultivation of Realization, trans. Thomas Cleary (in Taoist Meditation)
[T]he Hare Krishna mantra is not sectarian. Because we are chanting these three names -- Hare, Krishna and Rāma -- someone may think, "These are Hindu names. Why should we chant these Hindu names?" There are some sectarian people who may think like that. But Lord Caitanya says, "It doesn't matter. If you have some other bona fide name of God, you can chant that. But chant God's name." That is the instruction of this Krishna consciousness movement. So do not think that this movement is trying to convert you from Christian to Hindu. Remain a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim. It doesn't matter. But if you really want to perfect your life, then try to develop your dormant love for God. That is the perfection of life.
[...]
You may profess any religion, but to test whether your religion is perfect or whether you are perfect, you have to see whether you have developed your love for God. Now we are distributing our love among so many things. But when all this love is concentrated simply on God, that is the perfection of love.
-- A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, talk given at Northeastern University, Boston, Summer 1969 (as reproduced in The Journey of Self-Discovery)
( So I've been thinking. )
Addendum:
( This probably merits another lj-cut. )
- Location:sukhavati
- Mood:
contemplative - Music:The Gouranga Powered Band - Govinda
( With that out of the way... )
Finally, I'd been considering getting a new music game after Xmas, but with GH: World Tour, Rock Band and RB2 all having different instruments with them, I wasn't sure whether I'd end up having to buy several peripherals if I wanted to play more than one game. Fortunately, someone (can't remember who, sorry!) linked me to Joystiq's Instrument Compatibility Matrix. Having tried at least 3 different guitar controllers on the 360, I think the best choice would be to get GH: World Tour with the guitar, and pick up both Rock Band titles on their own. [edit: I think I'll just get RB2, as apparently -- thanks Toroka -- if you want the songs from the original Rock Band, it costs 400 XBL points and 1.7gb of space to copy them for use in RB2. Any downloaded songs for either game work with RB2, though, so it's not like I'd be losing out on very much -- plus RB2 has more songs on the disc and better options anyway.]
That's about all the news I have, really. Though a lot of my focus lately has been on games, I've still been keeping up with reading Buddhist books (I got some last week, and I'm still trying to sort everything out with Wisdom so I can get the lost shipment replaced and delivered to my mum's) and various other interests. The only other thing I need to do today is pick up a repeat prescription from the doc's, to ensure I have enough meds to cover me for however long I'm away.
- Location:Net Slum
- Mood:
content - Music:Death Cab For Cutie - We Laugh Indoors
( Enough preamble, on with the recipe. )
- Location:Tsunami Studios
- Mood:
full - Music:Fiona Apple - Used to Love Him
I feel oddly validated. Also, I will make a real post with actual content soon.
- Location:Net Slum
- Mood:
silly - Music:Muse - Starlight
- 10:11 Been awake for an hour orso which feels crazy early for a Saturday. Vaguely hoping books will arrive but suspect they were lost in the post #
- 10:20 Also? Looks like loudtwitter's autoposts to my LJ are working again, suddenly. Thanks, @loudtweeter #
- 10:27 Retweeting @loudtweeter: mouser.livejournal.com/379686.html is a useful guide to getting your tweets shipped to your LJ #
- 11:33 Post arrived and no books again; if they're still a no show on Monday, I'll email for replacements. Hopefully that'll all be okay #
- 15:33 Mercs 2 may be buggy but it's a lot of fun. Plus, naming all the Achievements after metal tracks is a cute touch #
- 19:39 Coil is good brooding music. Not feeling so great this evening; maybe if I eat I'll feel better, but I'm apathetic at best #
- 22:55 Talked to my folks and made dinner; feel a lot better. Also perfected my spaghetti recipe, will blog at some point #
- 23:15 Dying my hair purple for a change, messy business as always. Watching Buffy while it works, then shower time #
- 01:45 Hair enpurkled, but could do with another cut. Am also all clean and shiny. Bed soon, then roleplaying tomorrow with the usual suspects #
- 02:04 Slight mistweet.Twitter grade is 69 (hur hur) / 100: see twitter.grader.com/electricdog . Went down after I nuked some spammers. #

