custom css, exams finished and the shoemakers children

Had the last exam today, in digital documents, and now I’m free (!) for 12 weeks! (an old hag like me- I have no idea what to do with all that time..) The idea is that I’ll fix a custom css here, learn flash, set up a website proper, and get some good webdesigns done. And looking forward to read some fiction, and not programming books only.

……..but as the saying goes, the shoemakers children go barefoot. And good intentions never changed anything. Ask me how it went in 12 weeks time. And a happy holiday to all :-)

The colour blue – the devil, the virgin and the red dyers’ bribes

Today, blue is probably the most popular colour around.
We assosiate good things with it, it represents all sorts of positive things: air, sea, freshness, calm, and a few not so; feeling blue, blue monday. At least in this day and age, blue get a good deal of attention. But it was not always so-
Blue is not an old colour- it is not a paleolithic colour- our ancestors in the caves didn’t have blue. The prehistoric palette was – as mentioned elsewhere – ochre, white, black and iron oxide. Yellow-brown, chalk, ash and rust.
This was the case a few millenia later too- when we settled down and started farming – and dyeing. Until the Middle Ages, these where in fact the main colours around- and social and religious structures and symbolism buildt around them (note that the catholic church still revolves around red, white and black, with green added as a tag-on for «all the other days»).

In europe, the oldest fabrics are all dyed in shades of red. In fact, they say, in Roman times, the latin word for ‘coloured’ and ‘red’ were synonyms. Greeks and romans rarely dyed in blue, but the celts and germanic tribes did – using woad (that yellow plant you see all around temperate europe). Hence, blue was seen as primitive and barbaric.

Northern Irelands silly ghosts. Attempted murder, hahaha!

I admit I don’t really keep up with Northern Irish news much these days. It’s either desperately provincial – or just plain desperate. Yes, someone planted a bomb the other day, and yes, somebody got hurt. And I’m sure the obscure rural radio show is still going on without me. So. Some things never change.
But the other day, I got tangled in a BBC-infused NI-news-net. And some old skeletons dropped out of the closet. Good old names like Michael Stone and Mad Dog Adair.
Gerry Adams and Martin McGunniess nearly had their parlamentary meeting disturbed by Michael Stone, the old rascal, who wanted to slit the throats of the Shinners. Seriously. No kidding.

Michael Stone – exceptionally bad haircut and not-a-winning personality – stuck his nose out again, and this is a good wan!

Lawnmowerensis

Summer at last.
Weekend at last.
Two more exams.

Beautiful weather, gorgeous peace.

Sitting in the garden reading, taking notes, it begins.
The neighbour fires up the lawnmower. This is, in fact more contagious than ebola in a chicken coop. So the neighbour on the other side thinks «oh, mow the lawn, maybe!» and he fires up his machinery. So then the landlord… and the guy across the road, and the next one up…

So when neighbour number 1 is finished with the mower – thank god!… out comes the bloody trimmer. A high-pitched whine, a teeth-grinding squealing. I brace myself, and see that I could go bonkers, and remember a high quality splatter-film I saw once. It included some deranged caracter, a blade lawnmower and about 30 000 liters of fake blood. I get pictures in my head. I see why people go apeshit on planes or turn up at work with sub machine guns. Simply one bleeding lawnmower too many.

The worst books ever written

Few books deserves a place on the bookshelf of shame, and I’m a little ambivalent about this – should I dignify the biggest drivel I have ever read, or is the best plan to let them die in silence? For artists and authors the worst thing is indiffrence. Hate is at least an emotion too.
But on the other hand: the world should be warned. I have no place for nazi techniques, but burning them will at least keep you warm for a bit. The only good I can see for those books. They should never have been written, never published and never read. These books are drivel, rubbish and the world would be a better place without them. So, as a service, here I present two books you can stay clear of, and consider yourself lucky and a better person for not having read them.

So- without further ado:

all things weird & wonderful

Wandering around on the net, you find the weirdest things.

..

media – gossip central and major irony

I don’t read papers much anymore, I don’t have a telly.

In fact, I have been sans telly for …oh.. the main part of the last sixteen years. I had a telly the first four years, I used it as a pedestal for potted plants and asian souvenirs, considered making a fish-tank out of it, and watched, hungover, all in all four hours of the good Sir David Attenborough. I had it for months before I turned it on to figure out if it was colour or black and white. The thing is: some things on telly are good. Some first class stuff. But it is surrounded by trash. So either you turn it on – default – and accidentally bump into something good,… or… I simply forgot when to turn it on for the good stuff.