Showing posts with label Mars in 9th. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mars in 9th. Show all posts

Sunday 18 January 2009

Happy Perihelion (a bit late!)

Pardon the delay in blogging-my school had a few "vistors" and this effectively put my entire life on hold. When I returned to what some people may consider a normal life, the batteries of my mobile, digital camera, i-paq and i-pod were completely flat. So that's how busy I was!

I intend to make up to all (a-hem) my faithful readers and other kind people who I'm slowly discovering have been linking to this blog (leave some messages, eh?) by including in this blog a poem, a few meaningless facts and, as ever, a gut bustingly funny astro joke.
We did hold our annual Perihelion Party on 4 January. We are fortunate to have such wonderful guests who truly get into the spirit of the eating, drinking and merriment (a few years ago, we did have a horrible guest who was allegedly throwing black magic around when she didn't get all the attention she thought she deserved. It was rather exciting in a demented kind of way.). There was copious food and drink and yes, I did have to get up for work the next day! Left is one of our participants in the festivities, Jeremy Thomas Morgan who read from his "A Clutch of Poems and Songs for a Night of Gallavanting with Gidwen" book. We ate veggie curry and rice and celebrated being on the wrong side of the tilt of the earth (hence the reason we were freezing our asses off when we're supposed closest to the sun).
Jeremy publishes his work written in his own fair hand. He has the most elegantly beautiful handwriting I've ever seen. Having been spoiled by a keyboard ever since I realised that I was giving my teachers headaches, my own handwriting is pretty bad so I'm not only envious of Jeremy's poetical talent, I'm rather jealous of his calligraphy skills too. To top it all off, he has a beautiful speaking voice! The other photo is of John Etherington of Midheaven books. I love the way he is listening so intently!
At the risk of spoiling the aesthetics of Jeremy's poems by typing them (actually, this poem he did type) I duplicate them for others to enjoy in cyberspace below:
"The last Elf's song at the end of time"
In vain I seek the Way that's gone--
a road towards the Sea
past ruin'd tow'rs that stand alone--which only I can see.
And whither have my kindred fled
who left so long ago--
(for surely, they cannot be dead
who lingered her so slow)?
I see their traces in the land;
I hear their stones' soft song;
I feel their waves upon the strand
of which I dreamed so long!
Now everywhere I send my though
but echo is returned;
Of all the answers I have sought
this one alone is spurned.
No muffled silence calls to me--
no Kindred Song is heard--
as far away the lapping Sea
now lisps its final word.
Yet here in lonely silence, I
shall dream the Final Song
and hope before the Stars all die
that I shall last as long.
Jeremy Morgan (10/10/84)

In other news, I finally finished my certificate for the Faculty of Astrological Studies. I was trying to gain some sort of recognition for the person who employs their retrograde Mercury in the most pointless and stupid manner in the history of astrology (and that's a long history my friend). So I gave up and smartened up. . .and I finally got the certificate.

Here's a few pointless facts to celebrate having Uranus in Pisces:

1. The longest one-syllable word in the English language is "screeched."
2. "Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters "mt"
3. Almonds are members of the peach family.
4. The symbol on the "pound" key (#) is called an octothorpe.
5. The dot over the letter 'i' is called a tittle.
6. Ingrown toenails are hereditary.
7. The word "set" has more definitions than any other word in the English language.
8. "Underground" is the only word in the English language that begins and ends with the letters "und."
9. There are only four words in the English language which end in "-dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.
10. The longest word in the English language, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.
11. The only other word with the same amount of letters is its plural: pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosesl.
12. The longest place-name still in use is Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukup okaiwe-nuakit natahu, a New Zealand hill.
13. Los Angeles's full name is "El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reinade los Angeles de Porciuncula" and can be abbreviated to 3.63% of its size,L.A.
14. An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
15. Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.
16. Alfred Hitchcock didn't have a belly button. It was eliminated when he was sewn up after surgery.
17. Telly Savalas and Louis Armstrong died on their birthdays.
18. Donald Duck's middle name is Fauntleroy.
19. The muzzle of a lion is like a fingerprint - no two lions have the same pattern of whiskers.
20. A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.
21. There is a seven-letter word in the English language that contains ten words without rearranging any of its letters, "therein": the,there, he, in, rein, her, here, ere, therein, herein.
22. Dueling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are registered blood donors.
23. A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.
24. It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.
25. Cranberries are sorted for ripeness by bouncing them; a fully ripened cranberry can be dribbled like a basketball.
26. The letters KGB stand for Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti
27. 'Stewardesses' is the longest English word that is typed with only the left hand.
28. The combination "ough" can be pronounced in nine different ways; the following sentence contains them all: "A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed."
29. The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable.
30. Facetious and abstemious contain all the vowels in the correct order, as does arsenious, meaning "containing arsenic."
31. Emus and kangaroos cannot walk backwards, and are on the Australian seal for that reason.
32. Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds, while dogs only have about ten.
33. The word "Checkmate" in chess comes from the Persian phrase "Shah Mat," which means "the king is dead."
34. The reason firehouses have circular stairways is from the days of yore when the engines were pulled by horses. The horses were stabled on the ground floor and figured out how to walk up straight staircases.

And of course, as promised, a very special Mars in the ninth joke:

A man suffering from premature ejaculation went to get some advice from his doctor. The doc told him that masturbating before sex often helped men last longer during the act. The man decided, "What the hell, I'll try it." He spent the rest of the day thinking about where to do it. He couldn't do it in his office. He thought about the restroom, but that was too open. He considered an alley, but figured that was too unsafe. He couldn't do it home because he didn't want his wife to know. Finally, he realized his solution. On his way home, he pulled his truck over on the side of the highway. He got out and crawled underneath as if he was examining the truck. Satisfied with the privacy, he undid his pants and started to do the business. He closed his eyes and thought of his wife. Just as he was getting into it, he felt a quick tug at the bottom of his trousers. Not wanting to lose his mental fantasy, he kept his eyes shut and replied, "What?"

He heard, "This is the police. What's going on down there?"

The man replied, "I'm checking out the rear axle, it's busted."

The policeman then replied, "Well, you might as well check your brakes too while you're down there because your truck rolled down the hill 5 minutes ago."

Thursday 14 August 2008

A is for Alex


This is pure bragging but just look at my bowling score! 142! 6 spares, 1 strike and only two gutter balls! Usually I get 6 gutter balls, 2 spares and er, 1 strike per game. I don't know what got into me but that ball was going where I was aiming. Maybe it's some weird astrocartagraphy line that makes bowling more favourable for me in Michigan. Oh wait, the next game I was more true to form (no photos of that scoreboard). . .
It's a shame I couldn't attribute my phenomenal score to Ojibwa Corn Soup but it's more likely a result of my dinner consisting of a chilli dog with cheese washed down with Mountain Dew (I did take a photo of that for posterity)! BTW I tried to smuggle Mountain Dew out of the country but was busted out. It just about broke my heart when security threw the two cans I had intended on saving for a rainy day (would have come in handy yesterday) into the nearest trash can--OK rubbish bin. My vocabulary will return to normal soon and I'll be back to good old British synonyms.
Speaking of synonyms, I have a good old homonym (get a dictionary!) joke worthy of a Mars in the 9th with Mercury stationary:
One Sunday, a pastor told his congregation that the church needed some extra money. He asked the people to consider donating a little more than usual into the offering plate. He said that whoever gave the most would be able to pick out three hymns. After the offering plates were passed, the pastor glanced down and noticed that someone had placed a $1,000 bill in the offering. He was so excited that he immediately shared his joy with his congregation and said he'd like to personally thank the person who placed the money in the plate. A very quiet, elderly, saintly looking lady all the way in the back shyly raised her hand. The pastor asked her to come to the front. Slowly she made her way to the pastor. He told her how wonderful it was that she gave so much and in thanks asked her to pick out three hymns. Her eyes brightened as she looked over the congregation, pointed to the three most handsome men in the building and said, "I'll take him and him and him."