History is fun!

So, wait, what exactly did Napoleon do wrong at Waterloo? Was it just that he had split up his forces to scare away the Prussians, but didn’t actually succeed in anything but splitting up his forces and defeating a rather cowardly Prussian engagement?

And where is Prussia anyway? What is it? Is it still around? Why haven’t we heard from them lately? Where can I find Prussian chocolate and Prussian fine-engineered cars? Is it related to Russia? I know Immanuel Kant was Prussian, which is odd, considering he’s considered a German philosopher, but the land he lived in is now considered part of Russia. I also know that in World War I, Germany wasn’t really a country, but more of a shadow of the 18th century and that eventually, the Kingdom of Prussia became the Free State of Prussia, which, according to the map, is the worst possible shape a Free State can take.

Nobody ever explains Prussia. And what the hell is up with Austria-Hungary? Am I the only one that thinks it’s made up? What are the odds that an empire with two names will eventually break up into two countries… each with one of the names? It just doesn’t make sense, it seems like a historian’s invention and no Czechoslovakian is going to change my mind otherwise.

Speaking of Czechoslovakia, did they ever fight in any wars? Did they ever have any alliances? Or were they too young of a country to go through all that? Is that more of a teenage country phenomenon? Did Prussia ever get to be a teenage country?

How old were they when they wiped the field with Napoleon at Waterloo? And can it really be fair to say that they did, when Napoleon honestly thought that half of his troops were chasing them away as he stood there, waiting for the grass to dry?

Speaking of which, is that why Waterloo is called his greatest blunder? It it because instead of taking on Wellington’s forces when he had enough manpower to do it, he waited until the previous night’s rain evaporated? Is that a blunder? Really?

I mean… what if the guy seriously didn’t want to get his boots all muddy? Who can honestly blame him for that?

It could happen to anyone. I hear Alexander the Great pricked his finger while attacking the Melli and had to stop fighting because he couldn’t stop crying profusely.

Last Year: Mothers: the kryptonite of 10 year olds
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Please do not kill me oh nerdlingers

So I looked through a few fantasy novels the other day at my girlfriend’s place. She’s a lovely girl: beautiful, smart, funny, talented and well read. I can only assume that fantasy novels were the closest thing to crack she could get without receiving social stigma while still maintaining a habit to something that is sure to cause cancer in later life.

Seriously, what the hell is with these fucking books? It’s like the authors wanted to write a novel but sadly were born without the ability to actually formulate anything resembling coherence with reality. Or style. Or drama.

I can feel the nerd rage already (not you dear). Why? Because I’m going to single out Robert Jordan here. Mostly because I know you pock-marked greasy bastards out there who curse in elven (I’ll be DAMNED if I’m gonna give THAT a capital letter) will be all over me for saying so, but what the fuck is with this shit? He writes eleven books? ELEVEN?! Religious texts get by with less than this. What makes that uppity bastard think he can string out readers for so long. What’s he doing? Making sure every book has got thirty new characters, two new worlds, five new monsters, plus a handy recipe for dwarf sugar cookies?!

And what makes me, a prospective novelist, most pissed off is that while I (and countless others) try to develop a personal style, a narrative sense and so forth, here comes the magnificently mundane utilitarian shambling writing style of our friend Jordan. How much have I read of him? Not much, but enough to know that if I have to read another word involving a character I don’t care about, from a place I don’t care about, with friends I don’t care about, with a name that involves an apostrophe, someone gon’ die. There’s the trick, my friends: if you want to write a novel, just write! Tumble your way through page after page, introduce characters as you see fit and make sure to make all the women buxom, beautiful and totally created to fulfill deep seated male fantasies that these nerdburgers have.

Oh and look at the amazing titles! Wheel of Time! Knife of Dreams! Fires of Heaven! My word, Robert, you astound me with your brilliance (”A sarcasm detector, that’s a real useful invention” *BAM*). Perhaps I can give you some suggestions for further titles when you write Wheel of Time book number two-hundred-and-twelve-mark-one:

• Coin of Magic
• Sword of Sorcery
• Cup of Death
• Magic Item of Magic Property
• Noun of Intransitive Verb

It’s amazing that you have time to bathe when you’re working on book after book like that, and coming up with some great titles! In fact, I express doubt that you in fact do bathe, basing my beliefs on the people I’ve seen who actually actively enjoy your books and consider them some kind of literature as opposed to mindless (OHHHH ever so mindless) escapism. At least the latter can be excused as being the simple act of rebellion a brain enacts against existence itself… meanwhile the former should be rooted out like a FUCKING PARASITE BURROWING ITS WAY INTO MODERN SOCIETY AS WE KNOW IT.

The test? If you read a book that includes any of the following:

• A heroine who wears skin tight anything and slays dragons/elves/dwarves/quantity surveyors/any monster the author just made up for the sake of the next Dungeons and Dragons rule book and the subsequent retailing.
• A character who’s name is something like Squador, Qu’elic, Excreptor the Megadeathslayer.
• The type of plot that gets a member of any ‘Dark Ages Society’ hot in the pants.
• Complex metaphors on the Bush administration as thinly veiled stereotypical brutish orcs.
• The use of phrases such as ‘Flurox chortled as he spake’. Sorry, but this is a load of wank. Hot, steaming, chunky, wank.

If you note these warning signs, and find yourself justifying your reading of such literature, saying such gems as “Oh come on, Spear of Destiny is just as good as Catch-22, you just don’t appreciate it!” then don’t be surprised if the next sensation you receive is not unlike that of an orc’s slammin jammin appraisal of an elvish countenance on noonsong day.

In other words, I’ll kick you in the nuts.

P.S. My own site, http://borderwaste.blogspot.com/ is now finally being updated. So, uh, go look. Often. And rejoice you bastards!

Last Year: United we stand, Divided we remain, And..... Scene!
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Random Intelligence II

1. The term “dramedy” first came into use in the mid-1980s to describe a new wave of similarly genre-blurring series such as Moonlighting, The Wonder Years, and Hooperman. It appears in an early Usenet post [1] in January 1990.
2. The first television show to incorporate a laugh track was The Hank McCune Show in 1950.
3. Canada is governed as a parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy, Canada is a federation of ten provinces with three territories. Initially constituted in 1867, the country’s constitution was patriated in 1982 from the United Kingdom.Canada’s Prime Minister, currently Paul Martin, recently lost a vote of non-confidence in the Canadian House of Commons, which required the dissolution of Parliament. A federal election has been called for January 23, 2006.
   As of December 2005, its official population estimate is approximately 32.4 million ^[1].
4. The name Viking is a borrowed word from the native Scandinavian term for the Norse warriors who raided the coasts of Scandinavia, the British Isles, and other parts of Europe from the late 8th century to the 11th century. Vikings traveled to the west and Varangians, who were best known as the Varangian Guards of the Byzantine emperors, to the east. This period of European history (generally dated to 793 - 1066 AD) is often referred to as the Viking Age.The word “Viking” was introduced to the English language with romantic connotations in the 18th century. Today, somewhat controversially, the word is also used as a generic adjective, referring to the Viking Age Scandinavians. The medieval Scandinavian population, in general, is more properly referred to as Norse.
5. The Blòt was the pagan Germanic sacrifice to Norse gods and Elves. The word is related to the English word bless and they are derived from blood, an important component in the rites.The verb blòta meant to “strengthen” and the intention was to strengthen the powers (gods and Elves). The most powerful means was the sacrificed object or being. It was usually animals and in particular pigs and horses. The meat was boiled in large cooking pits with heated stones, either indoors or outdoors. The blood was considered to contain special powers and it was sprinkled on the statues of the gods, on the walls and on the participants themselves.
   When they were drunk, the participants believed they felt the power of the gods (see sumble).
6. Symbel (from Proto-Germanic *sumlan “banquet”, continuing *sm-lo-, i.e. “congregation”, see copulative a) was an important Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian Blòt ritual drinking feast in which mystical revelation was achieved through drinking alcohol, usually mead.
7. Icelandic (íslenska) is a North Germanic language spoken in Iceland.Written Icelandic has changed relatively little since the 13th century. As a result of this, and of the similarity between the modern and ancient grammar, modern speakers can still understand, more or less, the original sagas and Eddas that were written some eight hundred years ago. This ability is sometimes mildly overstated by Icelanders.The Icelandic alphabet is notable for its retention of two old letters which no longer exist in the English alphabet: Þ (thorn) and Ð (eth or edh), representing the voiceless and voiced “th” sounds as in English thin and this respectively.

   The preservation of the Icelandic language is taken seriously by the Icelanders –rather than borrow foreign words for new concepts, new Icelandic words are diligently forged for public use.

   Icelandic does not have any dialect differences that can cause misunderstanding.

8. The letter Þ (minuscule : Þ), which is also known as thorn or Þorn is a letter in the Anglo-Saxon and Icelandic alphabets. It was also used in medieval Scandinavia, but was later replaced with th. The letter is called “thorn” in Anglo-Saxon and thurs (giant) in Scandinavia.  It has the sound of either a voiceless interdental fricative, like ‘th’ as in the English word “thick”, or a voiced dental fricative, like ‘th’ as in the English word “the.”The letter was used in writing Middle English before the invention of the printing press. William Caxton, the first printer in England, brought with him type made in Continental Europe, which lacked thorn, yogh, and eth. He substituted the letter Y in place of thorn. This was not an arbitrary choice on his part: in some manuscripts of the earlier 1400s the letters Y and thorn were identical. In fact Y in place of thorn is still seen on gravestones and in the stock prefix “Ye olde…”

   The definite article spelled with Y for thorn is often jocularly or mistakenly pronounced “yee” or mistaken for the archaic nominative case of you, written ye.

   Þ is the only Latin alphabet equivalent to the Greek letter Theta (?,?).

9. Some credit the printing press with giving Europe the technological and communication edge over Eastern countries in the end, one of the major questions in world history.
   Because of the printing press, authorship became more meaningful. It was suddenly important who had said or written what, and what the precise formulation and time of composition was. This allowed the exact citing of references, producing the rule, “One Author, one work (title), one piece of information” (Giesecke, 1989; 325). Before, the author was less important, since a copy of Aristotle made in Paris might not be identical to one made in Bologna. For many works prior to the printing press, the name of the author was entirely lost.
10. A goldsmith is a metalworker who specializes in working with precious metals, usually to make jewelry. Goldsmiths must be skilled in forming metal, through filing, soldering, forging, casting and polishing metal.At one time, the name was synonymous with banker, since they dealt in gold and had sufficient security for safe storage of valuable items.

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Random Intelligence I

I have decided to create a new game/series. This one is called “Random Intelligence.” The point is for me to provide you with five to ten new (to me) facts, figures, or stories. These need not be particularly rare, important, or obvious, but interesting and true. The goal is to cover the huge gulf that is my ignorance of the world around me with a few random facts that I can throw out if I ever have to discuss these in public.

If you still don’t get it, you’ll catch on soon enough. Watch:

1. About 89.5% of the people of Romania are ethnic Romanians, a group that— in contrast to its Slav or Hungarian neighbors — traces itself to Latin-speaking Romans, who in the second and third centuries A.D. conquered and settled among the ancient Dacians, a Thracian people. As a result, the Romanian language, although containing elements of Slavic, Turkish, and other languages, is a Romance language related to, among others, Italian, Spanish, French and Portuguese.
2. The South African Constitution provides that children under 18 have a right to be protected from work that is exploitative, hazardous or otherwise inappropriate for their age, detrimental to their schooling, or detrimental to their social, physical, mental, spiritual or moral development. The term ‘work’ is not limited to work in so-called economic activities (e.g. paid employment) but includes chores or household activities in the child’s household (such as collecting wood and fuel), where such work is exploitative, hazardous, inappropriate for their age or detrimental to their development.
3. Turkey borders eight countries: Greece and Bulgaria to the northwest; Georgia, Armenia and the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhichevan and to the northeast; Iran to the east; and Iraq and Syria to the south.
4. The title Marquess of Winchester was created in 1551 in the Peerage of England, making it the oldest English (and British) Marquessate still in existence. Therefore, the holder is considered the Premier Marquess of England. The Marquess of Winchester, incidentally, is the only Marquess in the Peerage of England without a higher title; all other Marquesses in that Peerage are also Dukes.
5. Humans have an estimated 100,000 billion or 10^14 cells

Last Year: Wish List
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What a Concept (ion day)!

Everything in Australia is named after Lachlan Macquarie (Lah-klan M-k-Worry). I emphasize this. There’s a Macquarie Park, a Macquarie Lake, a Macquarie University, a Macquarie Suburb, a Macquarie Island, and probably even an I Can’t Believe It’s Not Macquarie spread. It’s ludicrous the way this man’s name is plastered over everything. Nobody else does that (Quick, shut your mind up before you think up any counterexamples!).

Interestingly, nobody knows anything about the man behind the name. They don’t even know his right birthday. Take today. Today is Mac Uni’s Conception Day. Which, as far as I can tell, is an excuse to drink and listen to music and not go to class. Conception Day is supposed to occur exactly nine months before the late Macquarie’s birthday (think about it).

It doesn’t. Today is Conception Day and his birthday is just four months and two weeks away.

But, no sense in spoiling everyone’s fun. I’m done with my homework, I have a two week break now, and it’s time for a party.

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