Codex Ostraca

Question for the day -

2012-01-17T16:17:00.000-06:00

If everyone is a unique individual with their own tastes, likes, and dislikes then how do mass produced one size fits most popular culture and brand names used as an expression of self continue to flourish?

2011-12-25T03:13:00.000-06:00

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Feliz Navidad, Happy Holidays, Happy Yule, Merry Winter Solstice, Happy Kwanzaa, and sooooooo.....many, many more.

Point is, whoever you are, wherever you're from, whatever you do or don't believe in, you and I have something in common. We are both human beings. We both have families, those we were born into and those we've chosen. We both bleed if you cut us. We both smile if you let us.

So please, accept this small gift from me today. A wish for you and those you love to have peace and fellowship. To take deep breaths and sigh contented sighs. To love and to be loved. To put all the problems in the world and in our lives on hold, for just a little while. Tomorrow, we can go back to solving them, together.

:)

Greyhound

2011-11-07T20:06:00.000-06:00

They have departed this world, yet still they ride through it. Charon, their driver, collects the coins from off their eyes, from under their tongues. The asphalt is his river now. Grey souls riding a grey bus, a faded dog on each side, chasing an eternal rabbit. Each soul searching for a reason for what was, for a path to what will be. Searching for their own angels, running from their own demons. Each has their own reason for not leaving this veil of tears, not yet, for not going wherever it is that the dead go, not yet. Doggedly chasing phantom rabbits down a moonlit interstate, in a bus with chrome sides worn to a dull almost transparent finish. As soft as dead leaves. As sharp as new wine.

Humanity Who'se to Blame? -

2011-10-04T00:10:00.000-05:00

People blame this. People blame that. People blame everything, except people. People themselves are the problem. We always divide into 'Us' and 'Them'. Different people use different dividers. Some use sex. Some use money. Some use religion. Some use ethnicity. Some use other things. But, whatever we use to divide, we always divide. If division were the end of it that would be fine. Us and Them. Them and Us. But we're never satisfied with leaving it at that. We always want to go from Us and Them, to Us versus Them. They must be corrected. They must be contained. They must be controlled. We can voyage into space, and create computer networks that span our globe, yet we can not handle the simple truth that our neighbor is different from ourselves. I believe that humanity will never advance as a species until we can stop seeking to destroy those who pose no true threat to us, but are only different from us.

Tom Waits/Cookie Monster mashup - God's Away On Business

2011-09-04T23:04:00.000-05:00

Hi! My Name is Shannon and I am a Food Critic -

2011-08-16T18:27:00.000-05:00

Yes, it's finally happened. I've become one of those @#!!%$! snobby food critics.

1. Why does 90% of everything on the menu have to be something fried? Fried shrimp, fried chicken, country fried steak, french fries, fried fish, fried cheese, fried pickles.... enough!

2. What's the difference between a 12oz and a 14oz steak? 2oz of inedible rubber gristle that the cook left on instead of trimming it off.

3. Pssst! I have super powers just like in the X-Men movies. Really, it's true. Want to know what my mutant ability is? I can taste how many miles what's on my plate rode in the back of an 18 wheeler truck to get there!

4. If everything on the menu comes to the restaurant prepackaged, then it's not a restaurant. It's a microwave with a waitress attached.

5. Not directly food related but, if you can't do basic math or understand simple English sentences then, you have no business waiting tables, running a cash register, etc.

6. There are plenty more, but I'll stop with five so this list doesn't degenerate into an expletive laden tirade.

Not all restaurants have all of these issues. It's just that too many of them have at least some. Some restaurants have great folks waiting tables who are working their tails off, but are overworked and unappreciated in whatever chain food ghetto their working at to pay the rent. Other places, the cook is giving it his/her all but can't really do that much with the cardboard cutout ingredients shipped in from four states and two space shuttle flights away.

In short, there are too many so called restaurants where what's important is the theme not the food. It's a chic bistro, or it's a slam'in sports bar, or it's a family dinning experience, or it's a trendy cafe, or it's a nostalgic trip to food like grandma used to make, or it's one or another of a hundred other theme's. But when you look at the menu, surprise, it's all the same stuff out of can or freezer bag, just un-thawed and dressed up a little different for each theme.

So here's to more focus on food and less on themes. Better food might not fix all our problems, but it's a start.

Fairy Tale Princess -

2011-07-25T04:52:00.000-05:00

A fairy tale princess with blood in her tears and steel in her heart.
I wrote this world for you.
I hope you like it.

Choice -

2011-07-13T23:52:00.000-05:00

Don't blame people for liking the taste of chicken when chicken is all they're allowed to eat.

Me and the Devil - Gill Scott Heron

2011-07-07T19:51:00.000-05:00

For the Night -

2011-06-26T10:57:00.000-05:00

A shower to wash the day away; hot water, citrusy soap and some sort of purple lavender smelling unguent.

Sitting in the big padded chair now, watching ice crystals melt on another bottle of drinkable disinfectant fresh from the fridge.

Boot the computer to see what alchemy can be distilled from the ether before the sun returns and the world wakes once more.

Cool night air tiptoes in through the open windows, like a kitten stalking a bug.

A choir of crickets sings praises to their gods; for the rain, for the moon, for the night.

In the Eye of the Beholder -

2011-06-16T00:39:00.000-05:00

There are no ugly people. Everyone is beautiful. No, not everyone is beautiful to everyone else. But, everyone is beautiful to someone.

Magneto Otaku -

2011-06-09T21:34:00.000-05:00

Today's otaku moment is brought to you by the letters M and X and the numeral 24005 :)

Rango Movie Review -

2011-03-07T23:54:00.000-06:00

I've been on the road for the past few weeks and today was my first day back at the office in a little while. I started this morning, looked up and it was time to go to lunch. I went to Moe's Southwestern Grill and had the Nachos with beef and beans. As an aside, what anime and Americanized Mexican fast food are supposed to have in common I don't know but, either way, it was delicious. After lunch, I went back to the office. Shortly after that, I looked up again and it was time to leave. Yeah, it was one of those days.

After work, seeking some form of mental floss, I decided to go see Rango which opened this past Friday. I don't really know what I expected, but this was better. The movie is both an homage to and send up of practically every Spaghetti Western ever made.

The story follows the adventures of Rango, an animated chameleon voiced by Johnny Depp, who becomes sheriff of a small town of desert animals which is running desperately short of drinking water. It has an armadillo who seems to be a reincarnated Sancho from Don Quixote trying to make amends for the sins of his past life. It has Rango's quest to “reach the other side” which dovetails nicely with the quest pattern detailed in Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces. It has animation that makes you forget it's animation. It has.... well you get the idea. In short, it was just what the doctor ordered.

A Great Chasm -

2011-03-04T00:19:00.000-06:00

The distance between Heaven and Hell is the distance between one breath and the next; no distance at all, and all the distance in the world.

Someday

2011-02-14T00:26:00.000-06:00

Someday I may like this world during daylight hours. Until then, cheers, and libations for everyone! : )

Night by Lois Weakley McKay -

2011-01-18T21:49:00.000-06:00

My kitten walks on velvet feet
And makes no sound at all;
And in the doorway nightly sits
To watch the darkness fall.

I think he loves the lady, Night,
And feels akin to her
Whose footsteps are as still as his,
Whose touch as soft as fur.

- Lois Weakley McKay

Like & Love -

2011-01-05T22:36:00.000-06:00

Like is what draws a moth to a flame. Love is what keeps it there when it burns.

Bad Apple -

2011-01-02T22:28:00.000-06:00

I've never played a Touhou game in my life and would most likely suck at it if I did. But this video is awesome!

Of the many good remixes, this is my favorite -

Enjoy : )

Thought for the Day -

2010-12-31T07:56:00.002-06:00

Monsters exist, but they are to few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions. - Primo Levi

Chistmas Card ....

2010-12-22T17:16:00.002-06:00

"Nicholas Was" is a poem by one of my favorite authors Neil Gaiman. It offers a darker than usual interpretation of the legend of Santa Claus, cast more in the mold of Classical and Norse mythology.

39 Degrees North is a motion graphics studio in Beijing China.

The latter made a video of the former as an online Christmas card this year.

IMO *as if this blog were filled with anything else ; ) * it turned out rather well.

Enjoy and Merry XMas : )

Changing the World We Live In -

2010-12-14T09:24:00.002-06:00

The first step toward changing this world is being able to imagine a different one.

Faustian Bargain -

2010-04-23T21:50:00.001-05:00

When did we give up being citizens to become consumers?

Humanity -

2010-03-31T17:31:00.005-05:00

An odd species trapped in physical bodies and stuck in linear time. They inhabit a single small planet, in a nondescript galaxy in the far corner of an obscure little universe. All in all, a mere footnote in the vastness of existence. But, even for all that, the thing that makes them interesting is their firm, unshakable, conviction that they are, to use their own terminology, a 'higher, more advanced life form'.

Serendipity - Louis Wain

2009-05-01T20:56:00.008-05:00

Found ......

Liked .......

Now Sharing .....

Enjoy : )

Seeking the floating world

2009-01-29T23:31:00.005-06:00

I belong to a select fraternity of fools who believe it is possible to escape this world while yet living in it.

The Path of Least Resistance ....

2008-11-16T10:32:00.004-06:00

It is easier to obey power than to oppose it. Thus we tell ourselves, and teach our children, that obedience is a virtue and that those in power have our best interests at heart.

Purpose

2008-11-08T20:17:00.004-06:00

Capitalism is a wonderful thing. Making money is an admirable skill. Everybody's gotta eat. But these things are means to an end. They are not an end in themselves. At the end of the day we wish to change the world, not merely sell it something.

Fortune Teller

2008-10-20T16:16:00.006-05:00

She reads fortunes with Tarot cards. People go to her, and she tells them about themselves; things they thought no one else knew; things they didn't know about themselves. She shows them themselves, in ways they have never thought of. She shows them their same old selves, but in a different light. It's like seeing the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle magically arranged to make a picture completely different than the one on the box.

After they leave, a lot of these people buy a deck of Tarot cards, thinking they will read them for themselves. They think that they will tell their own fortunes. They think that what they have experienced, what they have been shown, is in the cards. It's not. The magic is in her, not in the cards. The cards are only a lens. She is the light.

Down the rabbit hole we go

2008-09-23T22:44:00.020-05:00

Scientist have wondered for decades what it's like to go into a black hole. Well, we're about to find out.

Watchmen Movie Trailer

2008-09-02T19:51:00.010-05:00

This book rocks! I read the comics when they were first published back in the 1980's.

I do have a few quibbles with the trailer, mostly the way they did Rorschach's voice. But overall, if the movie lives up to Moore and Gibbons's work, it will be a great show.

enjoy -

Thought for the Day

2008-08-25T22:09:00.004-05:00

When we revise the past to conform to the present, we do a disservice to the future.

Question

2008-08-02T08:00:00.003-05:00

Is mankind God's version of artificial intelligence?

Thought for the Day

2008-03-24T20:34:00.002-05:00

Being right is not an excuse for being rude.

Free Society

2008-03-20T12:56:00.004-05:00

If you can not express publicly what you believe privately, without being persecuted for it, then you do not live in a free society.

They just keep crawling out of the woodwork ...

2007-12-25T10:05:00.001-06:00

I've no problem with God. It's his fan club that has me worried.

Goings On

2007-12-22T01:26:00.000-06:00

Travel - Off the road right now. Hey, it's Christmas.

Shopping - Now have all but two presents wrapped and under the tree.

Reading - Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman page 189

Thoughts on Thoughts

2007-12-22T01:08:00.000-06:00

I thought of something I wanted to write. I thought it was something profound. But then, when I actually started writing it, it seamed so trite. So, that one goes back in the oven for a while. Maybe the soufflé will rise, and maybe it won't. Only time will tell......

Home Again... Home Again... Jigity Jig...

2007-12-06T23:29:00.000-06:00

Some things I learned while in New Jersey -

1. Snow is fickle. It decides when, where, if, and for how long it will fall; and there's nothing you can do about it.

2. Whoever came up with toll roads was either insanely brilliant or insanely crazy. Either way, he was insane.

3. A house is a place you live in. Home is a place that lives in you.

Also, finished Neil Gaiman's American Gods while waiting for my flight at the airport; wonderful book.

ttfn

On Being Unique

2007-12-05T02:00:00.000-06:00

You-nique, I-nique
he-nique, she-nique
we all nique in one way or another
it just shows on some of us more than others
dass'all

What's going on and what's in a name

2007-12-01T21:50:00.000-06:00

Travel - Went to VA. this week. Going to NJ. next week. Maybe going to OH. after the holidays , or not. No, I'm not independently wealthy. I travel for work.

You can see photos of my travels, and other stuff, on Flickr at http://www.flickr.com/photos/shannon-vaughan/

As for the name Codex Ostraca, it's a phrase I came up with to describe the Internet.

Codex is a medieval Latin word for a book with separate pages bound together, like the ones we have today, as opposed to a single scroll.

Ostraca is the singular of ostracon. It's a rock or potsherd which someone has written something on. People in antiquity used ostracon to write short notes, receipts for goods, ballots, magic spells and formulas, etc.; in other words all the stuff of everyday life. They wrote on ostracon because the stray rock or potsherd was much less expensive and more readily available than the parchment or vellum that the books and scrolls of the day were written on.

So, the Internet is humanity having a go at taking all of our individual ostraca with all of their varied sizes, shapes, textures, etc. and trying to bind them all together into one coherent codex.

Anyway... this codex will soon fill up with my posts, diatribes, rants, raves, likes, dislikes, general pontifications and other such ostracon.

Let the floodgates be opened.... : )