29 July 2006 at 20:20
Religious leader
Madyamika Hotbolla has made a triumphant return to the UnHeard Of Islands from exile in Scotland.
A crowd of fanatical supporters lined the beaches of the main island, to witness the homecoming of the buddhist fundamentalist cleric.
His holiness the Madyamika - a title meaning literally "bliss artist" - emerged from his chartered boat looking tired and emotional.
At a press conference, he rejected allegations that his arrival may trigger a holy war against the legitimate Samsaran government of the islands. But then he made this veiled threat - "people who don't do the bliss will not survive".
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
27 July 2006 at 17:00
I dredged the archives of my life for another vegetarian HNT clicky pic.
While growing up I didn't often see the humorous side of my father, mainly because of the hostilities between us. But towards the end of his life we called a ceasefire, and I visited him at his wee island cottage.
Every evening he went out to the pub, while I would stay at his place until he returned after closing time. On Halloween, he disappeared to the pub as usual. Late that night, I was sitting watching TV when the electricity suddenly went off, the door opened slowly, and a turnip lantern appeared in the doorway, going "woooo" and swaying unsteadily in mid-air.
In some countries I believe it would have been a hollowed-out pumpkin, but in Scotland the tradition is to use a turnip instead. Cheaper too. You put a candle inside, and the light shines out through the eyes and mouth.
I enjoyed my father's little joke, and next day I insisted we take a photo. You
can used to be able to click on the pic to zoom out and see the family resemblance.
I regret my old man didn't live long enough to see all the letters after my name.
Rob McJ, H.N.T., O.C.D., N.P.D. and R.D.D.
If you missed previous HNTs, you can access all the old half baked thursday posts
here.
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
25 July 2006 at 08:46
After a day and an evening of teaching yesterday at the McDonald Island Institute, powered by much tea and little food, today I'm too clapped out to do anything useful. I've been reading
Raising Yousuf, a blog by a woman from Gaza. One interesting post dates from her visit to America:
When I thanked Peter for welcoming us [to Connecticut] he joked that Americans needed Palestinians to liberate them “from the Israeli occupation of the U.S.”
Many years ago, in the days before email, my friend hotboy wrote me a letter, signing off with the words "
May all your problems be tiny little non-existent ones." I've just realised, it's come true - my problems are insignificant compared with most people's. Even compared with hotboy's. What a fortunate creature I am!
Google returns exactly
one entry for "McDonald Island Institute", so my employer almost qualifies as a
GoogleWhack. According to the rules, a Googlewhack is any
pair of words that returns a single Google result. Of course, now that I've mentioned "McDonald Island Institute" here, Google will include this post and return 2 results. Doh!
I've given up trying to work around the IE bug that sometimes hides the bottom half of this web page. But I'm in good company - even Microsoft have given up trying to fix IE version 6, and are now counting on the upcoming IE v 7.
Till then, doing a RestoreDown/Maximize will bypass this problem whenever it occurs in IE.
Thanks for your patience. Or you could upgrade to
Firefox. You'd never go back to IE.
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
20 July 2006 at 19:35
Someone asked me the other day "hey rob, what's happened to your
Narcissistic Personality Disorder? Are you cured?"
Well no, I'm not. And to prove I'm still a victim of NPD, here's another self-indulgent true story (but remember every true story contains a wee lie.) And there's an HNT pic at the end.
Once upon a time, in another century and in another country, I had an entanglement with the nation's darling. Here's how it happened.
For years I had been living with Angie, a good woman but not the woman for me. Nor was I right for her. Not brave enough to separate, we were still living together but we were very remote from each other, and we lived celibately. But Angie had stuck by me through very tough times, and I wasn't about to repay her loyalty by doing the dirty on her. So, although I enjoyed having several women friends, I was scrupulously celibate.
For instance, I went on holiday overseas with a woman friend). I squared it first with Angie, assuring her that there would be no funny business on the holiday. Perhaps I was naive, but when we got to the hotel and checked into a twin room and the friend leapt on me expecting a week of illicit sex, I was shocked. What kind of a person would I have to have been, to assure Angie it was platonic then bonk behind her back?
Anyway, you get the picture - I ran my life according to principles. It was my way of making the best of my life with Angie.
Then one day I fell under the spell of the nation's darling, and developed my new morning routine. I would get up when Angie came home from her night job, and we'd chat and have a cup of tea. Exhausted from work, she would then tumble into bed while it was still warm from me. And I would switch on breakfast TV just in time to watch the ND read her last bulletin.
Why do I call her "the nation's darling"? Well for a while, she was a national institution. All over the country, unemployed males with no real reason to get up in the morning would set their alarm clocks and drag themselves out of bed before dawn, simply to gape at the ND as she read the breakfast news headlines and weather forecast, in her uniquely fluffy and alluring way.
Artist's impression of the ND
supplied by Mamahog
At 9 a.m., the end-credits rolled across the screen, signalling three things: the end of the news; the start of kids' programmes; and the ND jumping in a taxi to appear at my house 10 minutes later, where we would spend the morning helping each other with our personal growth. No, that's not a euphemism ....
The ND would ring the doorbell, I would open the door ("Ssh! Don't wake Angie"), and this bubbly gorgeous intelligent person would come into my life for the day. What kind of things did we do, while Angie slept? We massaged each other. We did mutual counselling. Told stories. Went walking. I suppose we flirted, if that word means anything in this century. Went out for lunch. In the street, heads would turn, and I don't think it was me they were looking at.
She was very exciting company, sometimes too exciting for a man who had just recently had a brush with death and disability and was still emerging from the shock, and trying to get his health back. How can I put it? To use an Aussie saying, she had a few kangaroos loose in her top paddock.
Then my old man got cancer, and I visited him in the terminal ward. Self-centred as I was, all I could think of saying was "do the nurses let you watch the TV news? Look out for my friend the ND." Crazily, I wanted to add "I'm going to marry her (then you'll finally be impressed with me)."
Technically, the ND and I didn't ever consummate our relationship, partly due to my own suspicious nature and inability to trust someone so attractive and off-the-wall, who I knew had broken several hearts. And partly because of my old-fashioned reserve, self-control and notion of fidelity. Not to mention the
impotence.
Looking back, I think she and I redefined the word platonic. For example, on the day my father died, while everyone else ran around arranging the funeral, the ND and I spent the afternoon naked on her floor, doing massage. That's one way to get over the death of a parent. Months later, we slept together in my father's house, scaring each other with spooky imagined sightings of his ghost. I bathed her and caressed her. I could go on, but you get the picture. And in my mind, I wasn't being unfaithful to Angie because I never had sex with the ND. Is that Clintonesque thinking?
Anyway, one day when I was telling the ND how important healthy eating and living was to me, in my recovery from cancer, she interrupted me and said "why don't you just relax and eat lots of chocolate?"
Stunned, I thought: how can I trust this woman any more? She wants me to eat junk. She just doesn't get it.
We drifted apart, and the last time I heard from her she was asking me to sign her out from the psychiatric ward (they wouldn't let her out otherwise). Maybe she trusted me because I was one of the few men who hadn't tried to eff her over.
Looking back now, I think perhaps in its own way her exciting friendship helped me start to really live again.
The point now is, I've stayed healthy by eating nothing but healthy food ever since. And I never eat sweets or burgers, or drink cola. That was until last week, when I bought a monster size bar of Cadbury's Fruit and Nut chocolate. And I ate just one bit every day. Now I'm up to half a bar a day, with plans to ramp that up further. But it's okay, because everything's just balancing out. For many years I never ate any chocolate; now I'm making up for lost time. I'm perfectly balanced.
I tried moving on to Cadbury's Flake.
But it's not for me. Flakes just crumble on the tongue and give up all they have to offer in one huge immediate hit, whereas I'm into deferred gratification. I like the Tantric taste of a square of cold hard chocolate, that melts slowly in your mouth to sustain the ecstasy.
What's your diagnosis?
PS - This is a freelance Taoist blog. Every true story contains a wee lie. The lie here is that the photo of the ND is not actually of the ND, but it's the closest image I could find, reproduced with permission from
a blog post by the dazzling
keda.
PPS - And every lie contains a grain of truth.
PPPS - What is the difference between the Iraq War and the Vietnam War?
Bush had a plan to get out of the Vietnam War.
If you missed previous HNTs, you can access all the old half baked thursday posts here.~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
19 July 2006 at 18:11
I've invested in a wee book about fixing your own neck, with exercises that I have to do every two hours. So far it's working. Huzzah! But it says I should stay off the PC until I learn how to type without looking down.
Being pain free is Bliss. Suddenly, even the most mundane activities are a buzz. I enjoyed watching Teletubbies today, and couldn't understand why I had never watched it before.
I emailed the sick woman I know:
An old friend in Scotland, who has been meditating for twenty years and does several hours a day, has offered to "sponsor" me, in that he'll match every hour of my meditation for you, with two of his own. That's a bargain I can't refuse. So you're in both our thoughts on an ongoing basis, and who knows, it might help a little. Love from Rob McJ.
I shouldn't do this, there's enough cheap shots at Islam on the web already, but here goes anyway. I heard two Muslim jokes today, one of them was told by a Muslim. Can you guess which one?
Islam is actually the most peaceful religion on Earth. Since Mike Tyson became a Muslim he hasn't won a single fight.
A guy goes in an adult store and asks for an inflatable doll.
Guy behind the counter says, "Male or female?"
Customer says, "Female"
Counter guy asks, "Black or white?"
Customer says, "White"
Counter guy asks, "Christian or Muslim?"
Customer says, "What the hell does religion have to do with it?"
Counter guy says, "The Muslim one blows itself up."
~
~
~
~
~
~
18 July 2006 at 10:19
Are we really watching the start of World War 3 (or 4 if you count the Cold War)?
What is going on in the Middle East? And why? And how can it be fixed? My colleagues at the McDonald Island Institute tell me that, if you leave aside the last 50 years and forget about trying to apportion blame, the recent events actually make a lot of sense.
Remember the way that arab society works - tribal sheiks are the focal point of power (decision-making, grievance-handling, the legal system, wealth distribution, welfare etc.) The system works well, but it relies on maintaining the honour and status of the sheik.
Syria can be viewed as a sheik in macrocosm. Syria lost face when it was recently kicked out of Lebanon in disgrace. Syria is also on Bush's "axis of evil" black list. So it is grieving for its lost status as power-broker in the region.
How can Syria regain its status in the world (at least in its own eyes)? That's simple - first they get Hezbollah to provoke Israel into a war. Why?
Because this will force the international community to go to Syria and beg it to fix the problem (by calling off Hezbollah). A deal will be done, and Israel will bow to the demands to free prisoners, just as they have done after previous disputes. A great result for Syria, which is rehabilitated as a sheik on the world stage. In addition, Syria might take the opportunity to say "see what happened when we weren't around any more to run things in Lebanon?"
The brilliant
Robert Fisk, who lives in Lebanon and has observed the area for 30 years, reckons that if it all goes according to the Syrian agenda, that is exactly what will happen after a few more days or weeks of slaughter on both sides. Of course, there is more to it than this, and people like the U.S.A. or Iran may yet screw up the Syrian power play.
Where I live, the breakaway regime on the other side of Heard Island has already developed a bunker system, disguised as a
bliss cave. Unless they agree to shelter me and the visitors to this blog, I may have to provoke them into an attack, then get Spud and friends to clobber them and take their caves.
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
16 July 2006 at 07:49
A woman I know is very sick, and
hotboy has generously offered to help me meditate for her. Every hour that I meditate, he'll match with 2 hours of his own meditations.
On Friday I started the meditation program. I thought I'd start with something easy, just 15 minutes lying flat and thinking well of her.
Well, it wasn't that easy. I was trying to still the inner chatter, when I noticed that my upper arms wanted to punch someone's face in, and my fingers wanted to strangle somebody. Well, I breathed that one away, but then I noticed the forearms wanted to rip someone's throat out. By the time I dissolved that thought, it was time for some mental blogging, visualising a beer, etc.
Over the entire 15 minutes, I probably managed 3 whole breaths where I thought of nothing else. Pathetic! I'll have to ask hotboy for advice. I wonder if he recommends masturbating before meditation, or after.
Today I had slightly more success. I lay in a hot bath (that may be cheating), and probably managed about 5 whole breaths of relative emptiness. I just hope my sick friend is getting more from hotboy than from me.
~
~
~
~
~
~
13 July 2006 at 09:58
Whenever I get an attack of the screaming neck pain, I visit a chiropractor, a wee lady who uses a magic technique she learned from a guy in New York. She's the only practitioner here who uses the technique, and it always fixes me.
So last week I phoned her to make an appointment. The poor woman is not at all well. She's had an operation for brain cancer, plus radio- and chemo-therapy.
I had a long chat with her, and she asked me to pray for her. I told her that with my religious beliefs, meditation for her recovery would be more appropriate, and she was happy with that. But now I'm going to have to learn meditation, after successfully avoiding it for all these years.
I thought of outsourcing the job to someone else. There's a joe on the other side of the island who meditates a lot, but he has his hands full just meditating for himself and the bereaved pet owners, so he can't take the job. When I asked him to meditate for the recovery of my sore neck, he went all biblical and said "O reject medical student, heal thyself!"
So it looks like I'm going to have to start praying for the wee woman, while doing yoga poses for my neck. That sounds suspiciously like Buddhist meditation. Doh!
Thank you to the commenters who refrained from telling me the football result. I have now seen the video. Alastair asked if I could spot the most appalling moment in the game. Well, the Italians resorted to non-football tactics near the end of the game, but that's nothing new. If they're not faking in the penalty area, they're needling the other team's best penalty kicker.
Of course, Alastair you're quite right, Zidane's headbutt was a little irregular, but it brings up two things:
- The use of the video referee has now entered football by stealth.
- The real tragedy is that, if Zidane had only known he was going to be red-carded, he could have got in a kick to the goolies. What a missed opportunity to end his career on a high.
My ongoing apologies for my absence from my favourite blogs - but I can at least use the time I'm saving by not HNT-ing today, to check in quickly alastair, hotboy, lee ann, lelly, keda and MM. When the neck pain finally goes away, thank goodness I'll have Bloglines to take me to all the posts I've missed in the meantime.
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
10 July 2006 at 09:26
The neck pain has pretty much subsided (I appreciated people's good wishes while I was out of it - what a fortunate creature I am!). So I'm trying a tentative post, though still using the cellphone to do most of the text entry.
I tried to watch the third place play off - the nicest thing you can say is that there were a lot of handsome faces (not on the German side, obviously).
The Aussies living here are hoping that Italy wins the final, cos that would mean Australia were only ever beaten by the world chapmpions, so Australia are second in the world.
Here on the islands, where the world cup happens in the middle of the night, TV stations like to mess with your head. They deliberately print the wrong times in the schedules, to make half the nation get out of bed too early, and sit through an hour of build-up (and ads).
My response is to set the video and watch it next day, fast-forwarding through the crap. But everything balances up, and the downside is that twice in the last week, I've been watching as the tape runs out at the 117th or 118th minute!
Well I've done it yet again when I taped the final last night. So until I see the repeat broadcast tonight, I still don't know whether Australia is number two in the world. Oh the suspense!
If I was a racist or a Little Englander, I would draw your attention to the fact that the final is between the very two nations whose World War 2 efforts were most pathetic. Is this progress?
~
~
~
~
~
~
04 July 2006 at 16:32
I'm on 2 weeks' holiday, and was looking forward to some serious blogging, but the screaming neck pain has taken hold. I'm typing this on my cellphone, the only way I can do text input just now. Pictures are out of the question. I may even miss this Thursday's HNT action.
I'm hoping that within a few days I'll be able to catch up on all the blogs that I usually read. See you then. If you're American, Happy Independence Day.
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
02 July 2006 at 07:57
Even their desperate last-minute dive in the penalty area couldn't save Brazil. France are having a recurrence of their 1998 (and 1982) form, with a team composed of old hands and new blood, and skins of various colours. Is it my imagination, or are the best teams (like France and Australia) multi-ethnic or multi-national? Even Germany has Poles and Slavs and a Ghanian. Contrast that with the white-bread English team, now out of the running. Vive la multiculturalisme! I probably don't actually know what I'm talking about here, but since when did that matter?
Now two surly latin drama queen teams are out of the competition. What a fortunate creature I am! One more to go.
Germany-France for the final, surely?
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
01 July 2006 at 17:01
Warren Buffett, the world's shrewdest investor has given away his $42-billion fortune, most of it to Bill Gates's foundation.
And a while ago, Bill Gates gave away most of his own billions to the charity. That's great news, but also unnerving. The financial success of these men was based on their uncanny ability to sense the future. When the shrewdest, richest men in the world decide it's time to buy their way into the kingdom of heaven, maybe we should all start saying our prayers.
If only the Boy Dunderhead would do the decent thing and impeach himself for acting unconstitutionally, we might still stand a chance.
Meantime, I'm considering donating this blog to charity, so I've had it valued. You can value your own blog too by following the link.
~
~
~
~
