Jag hade tänkt blogga om Metropia och om öppenhet och känslor idag (eh, två olika inlägg då) men jag blev väckt av en chef som behövde lite VAB-täckning. Så det bidde inget sånt — jag kom precis hem, klockan är halv nio, och jag är lite trött. Det kommer.

Ta lite Jan Johansson istället. Fin jazz och ryska folkvisor — jag älskar den här visan, och jag älskar björkar. Min barndoms tomt hade en stor maffig gammal björk och en smäcker mindre — den lilla var någon meter när vi flyttade in, när jag var några månader gammal, och sen blev den många meter hög och jättevacker. Den var liksom alltid min björk.

När vi bodde i San Diego, som egentligen är ökenlandskap, var det någon galen granne på vägen till skolan som hade en stackars ämlig liten silverbjörk på sin tomt, som måste ha behövt så galet mycket vatten, och jag blev alltid lite glad när jag såg den.

Berjoza är ett sånt fint ord också. (Berjozka är diminutivet, “liten björk”.)

Jag sitter och lyssnar och äter vårrullar och är ganska nöjd med livet ändå. Även om björkarna bara är kala vita nakna damer just nu. Jag blundar och tänker på en skogsdunge, kanske en ängskant, med ljusgröna luftiga kronor och sol och skuggspel och ljumsval luft som spelar i löven och över mitt ansikte. Kan inte annat än småle.

If you think that global warming rests on a few temperature data sets and models, you are very wrong. If you don’t understand this then you don’t know enough to have an opinion on the subject, and you most likely will be treated just like any other ineducable troll.

Commenter Daniel J. Andrews at James Hrynyshyn’s Island of Doubt. James highlighted the comment in a post that is also well worth reading.

The old Smoke and Mirrors site is currently migrating hosting and will be out of commission for a few weeks. Hopefully it will be back up and running on all new hardware in early December. In the meantime, I’ve set up a new temporary Smoke and Mirrors site to keep me ticking over for the next little while. I’ll also be copying over a few older posts for the benefit of anyone curious about my previous work.

Hopefully this arrangement will only be for the next few weeks, as planned, and I’ll be seeing you at an all new site soon enough!

Hello there old friend! I know I haven’t been posting as much lately, but sadly fall and winter isn’t exactly prime gardening time. However, fear not, I have some canning and cooking-related posts bubbling up to a nice boil and I will be focusing on those two areas as the days get shorter.

In other news, The Meat Hook, a new butcher that is housed with The Brooklyn Kitchen Labs, recently opened up and since it is right around the corner from me I decided to stop by and see what all the fuss was about. I am sort of spoiled in that I live in a neighborhood with quite a few butchers, bakeries and fish mongers, so I was surprised when I heard about a new “celebrity” restaurant-linked butcher shop (the butcher is run by ex-Marlow and Sons/Diner people) opening up in the area. A few months I ago I was disappointed with one of the other butcher shops near me when I went to go buy chicken and all they had was Perdue chicken breasts the size of a small lap dog. I’m not a foodie-snob by any means but come on: if I wanted Perdue chicken I would just go to the supermarket. I stopped by The Meat Hook to have a peek and was very pleased by their selection and service, so go there! Go now! Go MEAT!

Anyways, getting back to what was the real point of this rambling tale, I noticed that in The Brooklyn Labs section of the store that they had an amazing selection of home brewing ingredients and equipment. I have very little experience with home brewing but I was thinking about reading up on it and writing about it on this blog as a way to make up for my lack of gardening posts. So, once I get the guts (and funds) to buy some brewing equipment, expect to see some brewing-related posts.

Also: The Brooklyn Labs was pretty cool although it looked like it still was under construction. They had some bulk items, cheese and milk, some basic veggies and lots of strange and wonderful spices (although I still couldn’t find Dill seed, which I have been searching for since this summer when I was making pickles). If you live in Williamsburg you should definitely check it out.

Great note on writing sex scenes from Elizabeth Bear: http://storytellersunplugged.com/blog/2009/11/23/love-and-war/

I always appreciate this nuts and bolts kind of talk, especially at a time when I’m trying to figure out just what exactly I’m doing with this blog.

När den här bloggen startades var det utifrån en idé som föddes ur en serie inlägg om miljöpolitik, grön ideologi och ekosofi på min gamla blogg. Idén har mognat genom fyra inlägg (ett om Miljöpartiets sympatisörer, ett om grön ideologi, ett om stadsdelen Gårda och ett om neomaterialistisk ekosofi) och jag har fatta beslutet att låta Du gröna nya värld ombildas till ett tema på tankesmedjan Federas webbplats. (Läs också om det här).

Tack alla ni som läst och kommenterat på Du gröna nya värld under den korta tid som varit! Jag hoppas att ni följer med till bloggens nya hemvist för att bidra till diskussionen där!

Tankesmedjan Federa

***

Tycker du det här var intressant? Besök då andra bloggar om: Federa, miljöpolitik, grön ideologi, ekosofi, neomaterialism, nymaterialism, Miljöpartiet, Gårda, tankesmedjor

We’re ducking out for a spell here on the week of Thanksgiving in the States, so here’s some of our old stuff that you may have missed or forgotten about.  Therefore it’s new to you!

In years past we usually take all of November off to participate in National Novel Writing Month (we haven’t done it the last two years, because I’m not starting a new novel until my lazy underachieving ass finishes writing the old ones).  But we did squeeze in a few posts when the situation warranted them.

There was the time we thought we were going to be blamed for Norman Mailer’s death…

Then there was the time that dumb girl at the party told me not to sit in the Cheetos…

And then we took up the cause of supporting Huey Lewis and the News against non-believers who were blind to his awesomeness.

Ah… good times.  Except for the Cheetos bitch.

humor-blogs.com – fuelmyblog.com – alltop-humor – cre8buzz – blogcatalog

First off, we set another amazing weekly record, surpassing the one set just the week before by 63% or 234,911 hits. That’s an over 200,000 hit increase from just the previous week. The traffic of course was coming from Korea and Korean translations were a strong driver. I was assisted in this endeavor by a team of almost absurdly willing and helpful young Korean guys.

Old record: 372,649: October 9-15
New record: 607,560: October 16-22

A new highest visitors in a day record set on Monday, November 16. This Korean translation was once again huge on the Blogger site, while Ann Dunham Nude Pics? did well on this site once again.

Old record: 61,854 November 12
New record: 66,929 November 16

That highest day record was immediately smashed by 25% the very next day, when not only was the 70,000 mark broken, but the 80,000 mark was broken too. Once again, traffic flooded in from Korea where the same translation was starting to go viral in an insane way by being endlessly reposted on personal blogs. On the WordPress site, a new piece, A Race Realist Argument For the Existence of a Black Race, was a big hit.

Old record: 66,929 November 16
New record: 82,190 November 17

The new 1st place record was nearly broken the very next day, but the tally fell short by about 800 hits. Nevertheless, a new second place record was set, completely destroying the old one set merely two days before by 14,000 hits. Once again, these two posts were very popular. On this site, Ann Dunham Nude Pics? was popular again.

Old record: 66,929 November 16
New record: 80,623 November 18

It took only until the next day for the old highest highest visits in a day record to be broken, and it was smashed by 10,000 hits as the surfers flooded in from Korea again. The same two pieces that had been driving traffic all week continued to bring them in, and on this site, Alpha Unit’s Just a Thought along with the old reliable piece about Obama’s mother were popular.

Old record: 81,933 November 17
New record: 91,555 November 19

The very next day, the new record was totally smashed again, this time by a huge amount – 18,000 hits. The usual suspects were driving the traffic on both sites, and Korea was the main driver on the Blogger site.

Old record: 1. 91,555 November 19
New record: 109,497 November 20

On Saturday, November 21, incredibly enough, traffic was so heavy that it set a new third highest day record. This is great because interestingly enough, traffic always declines on the weekends. It’s highest during the week, typically during the workday in the US, apparently because people are accessing the Internet while at work or possibly in school. It declines after dinnertime and on weekends, I guess because most people, unlike us webmasters, actually have lives and get off the Net in the evenings and on weekends. On Saturday, traffic drops a lot, and on Sunday, it drops even more.

Traffic is highest of all typically on Monday, at least in the US. What’s interesting is that in Korea, traffic is highest of all in the evenings. This implies that Koreans go on the Net less than Americans while at work or in school or see the Internet of more of an evening leisure activity than Americans do. The usual suspects once again drove traffic on the old site, with the addition of this Korean translation of a particularly horrible video post. On this site, the old standby, Ann Dunham Nude Pics, did the trick.

Old record: 81,933 November 17
New record: 87,411 November 21

The next day, on Sunday, unbelievably enough, a new third highest day record was set, breaking the record set just the day before. This is really shocking because traditionally, Sunday is the slowest day of the week. No one is really sure why this is. The weekend is the slowest time of all. Saturday is the second slowest day of the week and Sunday is the slowest. The only suggestion is that most people have better things to do in their free time on the weekend than go on the Internet.

Once again, traffic was flooding in from Korea mostly from a smash-hit translation, but to a lesser extent this other translation also. The Koreans have been the most cooperative linguistic group so far in terms of translations. Many are young Korean males, 16-26, donating their time in order to practice their English. We are now in the Top 15,000 Internet sites in Korea, and we are getting around 46,000 Korean visitors a day.

Old record: 87,411 November 21
New record: 89,245 November 22

Three cheers for Robert Lindsay!

I’ve been terribly remiss in posting regularly. And so, I’ve made a new commitment – one post, per day, every day until Christmas. Hopefully that’ll force me into the habit (and being a good writer means writing every day,  right?).

That is all.

The Pierced Consumer is One Year Old!

Wow!  I can’t believe it’s been one whole year this month since I started this blog. Lots of blogs don’t even make it that far. I’ve seen a lot of “bodyart” blogs which are either “buy my jewelry” pitches or “my journey into body art” ramblings, and I’m glad to offer something different, something apart from now-standard experiences and endless photographs of ears and navels.   This isn’t a bullshit blog, and I hope I’ve made some good contributions on body piercing which inform and entertain.

I can’t always say it’s been smooth sailing, like when I made a very unflattering remark about a well-known belly dancer’s tattoo and she responded.  Not everyone agrees with my opinions, either.  That’s fine with me.  Do your own research and come to your own conclusions.  I’m not posting daily like I did in the beginning, which I knew wouldn’t last, and there have been some noticeable gaps when I just can’t think about body piercing; ’cause I’m just that kind of a flake. But I’m still here so I guess I haven’t given up yet.

In honor of this anniversary, here is a recap of some stats:

Top Five Posts:

1. Body Piercing Basics
2. Aftercare in Detail: The Dope on Soap
3. Traditional and historical:  The Nose Piercing
4. Book Review: Kat Von D High Voltage
5. Mayan Body Piercing:  Keeping the Universe Alive

My busiest day was November 17, with 283 views, which is the day the Do’s and Tattoos review was noticed.  I’ve had over 34,400 hits overall, and the average in 2009 is a little over 100 hits per day.  Now, these numbers are pretty pitiful compared to some, but I’m still pretty happy.  Readership has gone steadily up. I’m a slow writer, and it’s a narrow topic.  I’m not trying to sell anything here except for better body piercing practices.

There are some important posts which I’ve yet to write:  a risks post, for example, since there are indeed serious risks to consider and avoid in body piercing; another is a piece on Aztec body piercing, which should be coming up shortly.  Historical posts seem to be popular hits, and it’s an area that interests me, so you’ll probably see more.  My choice of things to write is sometimes impulsive, and I’ve made no effort to completely cover every area of body piercing.  For that, we now have The Piercing Bible, by Elayne Angel, and for that reason, it’s been a very important year for The Pierced Consumer.

I would like to thank everybody who is reading.

For those of you who have been fans, commented on my posts. tolerated my self-promotion, here’s a little something for you.  I was fooling around trying to get a birthday shot, and this one came out, well . . . completely inappropriate!

fin

Ed.

So the “posting regularly ” thing isn’t exactly up to a great start, but it’s still something I’d like to get in the habit of doing. So I guess I’ll make this a meta post. Mostly I’d like to state what my intentions are for this blog. If you check the about page you’ll see that there are three big things that consume my life; my faith, programming, and (at least until I graduate) school. There are other things that interest me of course, but they usually take a back seat to those three.

With that in mind, I basically intend to use this blog as my own private soap box for those three things. Any other miscellaneous stuff that I happen to dream up will probably end up on here as well.

Color, vivid complex color, shapes everything I see, and adds meaning to all of it. Most human beings who have normal rods and cones in their eyes see color and color no doubt adds meaning to their experiences, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I have what I think of as a “color sense”, and a related sense of “color harmony”,  that are so critical to how I experience the world I would include them in my personal array of physical senses: sight, feeling, smell, taste, sound, color sense, color harmony sense.

Kit Whitfield’s post, “Watching the Same Movie“, inspired me to mention it. I only realized I had them as discrete entities maybe three years ago. Before then, they were just something I took for granted.

I first noticed them when I got serious about interpreting my own dreams, which was +/- three years ago (hence the post title). As I combed through my dreams for important symbols and motifs, I realized that colors in my dreams were essentially encoded data that I could use to understand what was happening, and why. Colors, either individually or in groups, tell me how people feel about themselves and their place in the world. Are they happy generally, and/or right this minute? Are they conflicted, do they feel welcomed or alienated? Do they like themselves? Are they in an environment that’s healthy and nurturing for them, or not?

So, interpreting one’s own dreams, great; but can my color senses be used outside my own head? Yes. Looking at someone’s art tells me a lot; however, everyone isn’t an artist. But most people’s outfits and settings they control (their homes, their offices or cubicles, etc.) will also give you a lot of data, if you know how to read it.

The color channel basically tells me the emotional story of people around me. It’s sort of like a transcript of what body language tells you – so you can keep reading it, even after individual gestures are long gone.

And related to it is my color harmony sense. Do colors “want to be together”, or not? I find it physically painful to look at colors that don’t want to be together. But what do I mean by that? Whenever I make art, the colors involved tend to be mixes of hues – I’ll never use “pure red”, “pure yellow”, or “pure blue”. I only ever use secondary (orange, green, purple), tertiary (red-orange, yellow-green, blue-violet, etc.), or other tones. If I have a set of elements in a grouping, even if they appear to be the same color, I won’t make any particular effort to “standardize” the proportions. That is, if it’s three red-violet triangles, I don’t try to make them exactly the same shade of red-violet. I like analogous color schemes [colors next to each other on the color wheel - for instance, yellow, orange, red], but I always include some sort of contrasting shades, whether they’re complementary, split-complements, triadic, etc.

Disharmonious color schemes to me are evidence of internal or external conflict, leading to disrespect, mistreatment, or coercion of some sort. When I look at a color scheme like that, it appears to me like some of the colors want to run screaming out of the plane they’re in, but they’re trapped.

In all of my art, there are “conversations” going on between elements, and everyone is influencing everyone else, even if said influence is not visible. And those interactions are “friendly” or “neighborly” – maybe no one’s mind is changed, but everyone relates to everyone else as an equal, things are learned, and all are enriched by the contact. And therefore, overall, it’s harmonious, it’s beautiful, and it’s dynamic. It’s life unfolding before us, in its unpredictable way. It’s a grand adventure.

Earlier this year, I received the following award from the most generous Wolfgang Amadé Mozart:

I just noticed that my note of thanks never made it on said wonderful blog. Like many others, it’s hosted on blogspot. And blogspot seems to have a Joyful-Molly-allergy. I’m the peanut-butter of the blogosphere.

But this won’t keep me from recommending some wonderful blogs for your reading pleasure. Whenever I find the time, I follow the writings and findings of these amazing, funny, interesting and fascinating people, who, in my humble opinion, are some of the best you can find on ye olde inthartubes, and whose contributions to the alive-keeping of history are invaluable.

Listed in alphabetical order. Sort of.

THE DUTCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE’S GOSSIP GUIDE TO THE 18TH CENTURY
Scandalous tid-bits from England’s finest socialite of the Georgian age.

GARROW’S LAW
Maintaned by Mark Pallis, Legal and Historical Consultant on the BBC show.

GILLRAY’S PRINTSHOP OF HISTORICAL ABSURDITIES
Being one amateur historian’s exploration of the 18th and 19th centuries.

THE OFFICIAL WEBLOG OF WOLFGANG AMADÉ MOZART

ONE MORE STITCH
Reproduction and historic knitting inspired by original garments, objects and patterns from the past.

There are more, of course, and I’ll add them in my next update of MOLLY JOYFUL’S LIST OF USEFUL RESOURCES, but for now, please enjoy the ones I listed, and don’t forget to tell them how much you enjoy their work.

I tried to make a post on sucky blogs inspired by my own dismally bad pre-LU blogging that I’ve recently rediscovered and cringed at, but it failed.

We all know what crappy writing is and there is plenty of it out there, since everyone and their mother with access to internet and a delusion about their ability to write will start a blog. So there isn’t much point in outlining that.

However, some blogs just fail hard for their content.

Example 1:  Blogs of anorexic girls talking about how much better their lives would be if they were skinny, how much they admire other skinny girls, and reaching out to find others like them to support their anorexia (mind you, not support them in fighting it).  They realize they have a disease and yet instead of going to get some fucking help from a therapist or doctor, they blog about it.  Their ‘about me’ blurbs claim that they do not encourage anorexia, yet they blog Thinspiration, mantra for fellow ‘ana-girls’ and tips staying paper-thin.

Then there are the girls who perhaps do not realize they are anorexic (they don’t outwardly state it) yet their blogs show they obviously are, such as the blog called xthinforthewinx.  Great name.

I think Xanga is one the biggest offenders in hosting terrible blogs, as it generally attracts all the self-absorbed high school ditzes.

Example 2:  Blogs written by students with the purpose of advertising a college to prospective students.  They’re often cheesy wholesome students who must either be censoring themselves in order to make their college look good, or simply have lives that are boring enough that the college felt safe publicizing them.

So I searched for the worst colleges to see if I could find some bad blogs from equally bad colleges, and found that Radar Magazine does an annual list of the worst colleges in America. Perfect. They describe their list as “an exhaustive, semiscientific guide to the most substandard schools in America, incorporating statistics on academics, graduation rates, and student life from a diverse array of sources, including the Princeton Review, U.S. News & World Report, and the U.S. Department of Education.”   Ret’s take rooksee:

Worst Christian School – Liberty University Blog: This girl is an interior design major turned elementary education major when she realized there was “nothing I enjoy more than being around dozens of little kids all day long!” She writes about arts and crafts and God and kids. Her blog highlights another meaning of Christmas not mentioned in kiyp’s last post:  To spread the spirit of giving and send snow globes to little Romanian children to make them believe in God. Not the worst example of a blog ever, but I’m limiting myself to blogs from the “worst” colleges, and this girl is certainly the worst from LU.

Surprisingly enough, I couldn’t find any student blogs worse than my own.  Thank you internet, for reassuring me that I wasn’t the most hopelessly boring person freshmen year.

That was a lot of words for this blog, have another link.  Here’s a nice thought from Fox news.

Writing a term paper is hard. I haven’t blogged much nor read much lately thanks to it, but I hope to get back in the groove next week. In the meantime, here’s a short and quick Hymn Collection of the best 4e posts I actually managed to read this week.

•Dungeon’s Master has their Necromancer epic tier revision up for your perusal. Great job guys! I’m glad I could help them polish up what they had into what you see today. I think more people should try their hand at 4e brewing, it’s not so hard.

•Sly Flourish has his next monster optimization post up, Umber Hulk + Mind Flayer. I never thought of that! The gist of it is that the Umberhulk can daze a number of targets very easily, and the Mind Flayer is invisible to dazed targets, therefore allowing them relative safety while Drow Spiderguards and the Hulk tear up the front line. Nice combination, and pretty thematic since Hulks are favored slaves of the Mind Flayers, at least according to 3.5 lore.

•Geek’s Dream Girl has an amusing little story about a D&D library event and the adventures of a little boy playing D&D 4e for the first time, learning the game, making some funny comments and loving it even more than the edition he had at home.

•Nicholas at Dungeon Mastering has a post about introducing old school feel back into your 4e games. I’m not exactly endeared towards what a lot of people call “old school feel,” but it’s still a pretty interesting post. Knowing what some 4e gamers think is “old school feel” usually makes for an interesting read.

•Mad Brew Labs has a list of his personal Top 5 D&D Blogs. I pretty much agree on all of them. Sly Flourish’s tips on monsters have been great, Newbie DM is always excellent, At-Will has some really useful resources and Dungeon’s Master is par excellence. And then there’s me

This last one isn’t a blog post, but it is pretty exciting! I got linked at Wizard’s of the Coast Friday Roundup for my article on my Top 10 D&D Monsters. It appears that my blog is a favorite of Producer Matthew Burke. I’m always glad to hear of people enjoying my blog! I hope y’all keep coming back for more.

Art is not merely an imitation of the reality of nature, but in truth a metaphysical supplement to the reality of nature, placed alongside thereof for its conquest.
-Friedrich Nietzsche

The Black Square,Kazimir Malevich,1915

Malevich proclaimed his work as the “zero” of painting, that there was no-thing other that painting presented, no positioning, no certain conventional imaging. A meta painting – more – a painting that has no opposite in representational painting, no painting to its anti-painting. For representational painting must deal with particulars of sorts, whereas ‘not-painting’ is a general relation englobing the rest of the universe.

Artist : Matt Pagett

It’s my blogaversary! (Okay, so, actually I missed my own blogaversary… how sad … but today is near enough.)

Through blogging (and reading others’ blogs) I have learned much about the world, about writing, about myself. I think one or two people have learned a few things about me too – and, I hope, some other stuff they may not have encountered otherwise. I have also been blessed with some lovely readers, some of whom have supported my blog through adding to blogrolls, linking, tweeting and submitting my posts to carnivals, or face-to-face encouragement. Thank you all – I am not very good at acknowledging comments or maintaining connections (something I am resolved to improve) but please know that every time someone acknowledges or supports me in that way, I feel very much humbled and grateful. And also, inspired to keep writing. This is no small thing, to me.

In celebration of a year of Spilt Milk, I’ve decided to revisit a few of my favourite posts. If one can’t be self indulgent on one’s birthday, then what really is the point, I ask you?

Life in the ‘hood - where it all began, after some random musings turned into a brief essay one night and the phrase you should write a blog was said to me the magical number of times. Voila! Conception!

Thanks for the mammaries - I’ve written a number of breastfeeding posts but I reckon this one sums up my feelings on the matter more or less.

A good dog - we still miss you, Ferris.

Hello Little Bean – my birth story, in all its effusive glory. Still the best experience of my life.

Feminist mothers - in a nutshell, why I’m doing what I’m doing and writing what I’m writing.

Welcome to the tantrum club - because sometimes you have to laugh over Spilt Milk, too!

The conference is over, but I’m wiped. I’ll start closing some of these open tabs tomorrow.

There is an old proverb, attributed to Samuel Johnson (although probably much older), that says, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions”. In an attempt to be neutral in a particular disagreement, I find that I have only fanned the flames in my attempt to provide a platform for discussion. However, this is not what I apologize for.

My apology comes from the fact that I allowed myself to make a decision about the blog post entitled “Switzerland” (now removed from public view) due to a momentary annoyance which I should have let pass quietly. This sort of annoyance on my part is nothing but a character flaw and one that I struggle with. In this case, I took an innocent comment personally and perceived that someone was trying to tell me what to do in what I saw as “my house” — namely, this blog. Although the person who made the comment did not do so with malicious intent, I took it the wrong way and bristled — a kneejerk reaction and one I regret. I reneged on a promise because of that and I fear made matters worse than they would have been had I left things well enough alone. For this, I apologize.

To those who commented and now find that their comments are gone, I apologize to you profusely. The blame is mine alone.

A parte la cacofonia di Cecinelli, decisamente in difficoltà con le pronunce straniere, da Du Preez a Gower o Geldhenhuys e Pietersen (du preezzz, Gauer o gheldenuiss e pieteresen, così come li pronuncia lui) l’Italia piace ancora una volta.

Partiamo onestamente in maniera orribile, con un errore di Favaro che sembra riportarci agli anni passati, un placcaggio irregolare dove proprio non ci stava lo costringe a dieci minuti fuori dal campo dopo appena 3 minuti di gioco, e i Sudafricani ne approfittano. Bello il gesto di Mauro Bergamasco, per questa partita in panchina proprio al posto del giovane Favaro, gli si avvicina e gli dice di restare in partita, che questo è il suo match. In 14 subiamo subito due mete, una da Habana e una da Fourie servito ancora dalla velocissima ala, subendo il troppo spazio che l’uomo in meno regala ai campioni del mondo.
Poi la reazione è bellissima.

Loro non chiudono il match con i calci e rimangono in vantaggio solo 12 a 0, noi piano piano guadagnamo campo, con un Sergio Parisse semre più miglior 8 al mondo che, con un dolore alla cresta iliaca per una botta con gli All Backs e un appannamento della vista dovuto ad un colpo alla testa non solo non esce dal campo, ma domina, placca qualunque cosa sia più alta di un ciuffo d’erba come fanno i rossi di Galles e serve una palla incredibile che ci porta vicino alla meta Alessandro Zanni.
Nel frattempo crescono anche la prima linea azzurra, Sgarbi e Gower, che sale in cattedra, placcaggi da rugby a 13 e passaggi che si vedono fare a squadre di altro caibro a favore degli incroci dei centrali che portano alla meta del 12-7. La palla è schiacciata dal rosso Gonzalo Garcia, sempre più a suo agio con la maglia azzurra e trasformata dalla nostra apertura.

L’Italia monta, la difesa sale bene e anche i campioni sudafricani sbagliano, e molto. Quello che troppo spesso succede a noi nel 6 nazioni, dove attaccati dalla difesa avversaria commettiamo errori sotto pressione, stavota tocca ai verdi d’Africa.
Un primo tempo sorprendente si chiude 12-7, con un altro errore su calcio piazzato, stavolta da parte di Mclean che poteva portarci sul 12-10. Decisamente non il tempo dei calci, 3 errori per parte e solo mete nel tabellino. Il secondo tempo comincia con Ruyet al posto di Castrogiovanni, che però rimane a bordo campo a riscaldarsi, sempre pronto a rientrare.
L’Italia però si disunisce e subisce un altro calcio, poi una meta ancora una volta propiziata dal fenomeno Habana e segnata da Du Preez, 22-10 e la partita si chiude.
Le squadre sembrano stanche, ma noi lo siamo più degli SPringboks, che alla fine riescono a superare la linea di meta e schiacciare la palla a terra altre due volte.Fra le due mete il calcio di Gower e altri due errori di Mclean al piede.

Finisce 32-10, ma le note positive sono molte.
Per lungo tempo abbiamo lottato con i campioni del mondo e non mi sembra male. Il nostro gioco è in crescita, le nostre ambizioni anche.
Finalmente poi abbiamo trovato un’apertura degna. Gower è considerato da Mallett la migliore d’Italia, e ha ragione. Placca, passa e non ha paura di attaccare a capo basso. Ancora è troppo impreciso nei calci, troppo spesso calciati lunghi a mo’ di rugby a 13, ma c’è ancora tempo per migliorare. E poi abbiamo Sergio, secondo me il miglior numero 8 al mondo. Incredibile la sua grinta. Ad una domanda dell’inviata di La7 sulle sue condizioni lo staff medico ha risposto: <<Ha subito un duro colpo alla cresta iliaca e uno alla testa che lo ha un po’ offuscato, ma cosa c’è di strano? Tutto a posto.>>
Bene anche Picone, anche se piace molto di più Tebaldi nella ripresa, bel piede e veloità ad inserirsi fra gli avversari. Con una mediana così possiamo anche dire la nostra, se poi la prima linea è devastante come oggi e settimana scorsa anche qualcosa di più…

Alla fine Mirko scambia la maglia con Pietersen, e con questa Italia il blu non sta poi così male all’ala Sudafricana.

In World of Warcraft, mana is a universal magical resource.  It’s the latent energy with which all spellcasters fuel their magical abilities.  Practitioners as diverse and incompatible as Warlocks, Priests and Druids all tap that exact same “pool” of energy.  Mages blatantly violate the laws of the Universe by using tiny quantities of mana to conjure up magical food and water that grants vast quantities of mana when consumed (dammit mages).  Various classes provide an effect which causes the dealing of damage to “replenish” the lost mana of those around them.  We gain more total mana by increasing our intellect and recover lost mana through spirit.  But mana is just a resource: as long as you have enough mana to cast your next spell, there’s no difference between having full mana or having nearly no mana.

Warriors, Rogues and Death Knights don’t even have any mana.

Of course RPGs did not invent the concept of mana, they merely took an existing word from the fields of cultural anthropology and religious studies.

Mana as an earthly concept

The term is actually native to the primal Polynesian peoples of the South Pacific, whose beliefs are broadly animistic and polytheistic.  That means that the world is considered to be alive with spiritual reality, and that part of this spiritual reality is comprised of gods or powerful beings that may positively or negatively influence the lives of humans and the world around them.

In this worldview, mana is not so much a commodity as it is a state of being.  That is, not something you have in the sense of having a boat or having a job, but is more like “having” fame or good luck.  It’s not a human resource, but is connected in some way to the influence and power of the gods.  It’s very closely related to another term that has been Anglicised to taboo.

Mana is, broadly speaking, a good thing.  Having mana enhances your effectiveness and success.  If you’re particularly good at playing a musical instrument, it may be attributed to your mana.  If the water from a well is particularly clear and sweet, the spring itself may have a lot of mana.  If a sword is thought to be especially powerful and invincible in battle, it may be because of its mana.

Mana is not merely a short-term attribute like the idea of good luck as a result of doing something (like finding a four-leafed clover).  Rather, it’s a more long-term, permanent strengthening or positive influence of the gods.  Mana can stretch throughout entirely family lines or linger in one special place or thing for countless lifetimes.  In this sense it can be loosely associated with our Western ideas of inherited nobility or, in the case of objects or places, holiness or the sacred (but without the associated Western ideas).

Taboo

We’ve probably all heard of the concept of “a taboo” and may even use the word in conversation: in English, something that’s taboo is off-limits or inappropriate.  But we get the word, like we get mana, from the Polynesian term tapu.  A simple way of thinking of tapu is like the opposite of mana: Tapu also stems from the influence of the gods, but whereas mana is positive and efficous, tapu is dangerous and restrictive.

In some ways tapu functions like a protective law.  A place or a person may be tapu at certain times – that may mean being off-limits, or it may attach a propitiatory requirement (that means to perform an action to appease or to attribute proper respect and acknowledgement).  But the focus is not the requirement so much as the reason for the requirement: failing to abide by the tapu would bring disaster.  The tapu place may be under the influence of a god, and ignoring the tapu may anger or offend the god.  Or it could simply draw the god’s attention to you, which – as Polynesian gods are often very dangerous and even malevolent – is a really seriously bad idea.  Tapu is kind of like a sign that says “handle with care”.

But people with mana may also have tapu associated with them, precisely because both are signs of the influence of the gods.  A tribal ruler may have great mana, and as a result great power and influence, but that makes them dangerous and interaction with them may be governed by a great many taboos.  Likewise someone with mana may have to abide by special taboos to preserve their mana.

Unlike mana, taboo is often temporary or short-lived and unstable, easily transmitted: for example, a river may be fine to bathe in most of the time, but during a certain month or season it may become taboo, and anyone entering it during this dangerous time will be afflicted with the same taboo.  Mana can be lost or diminish over time, but you can’t really gain mana just by coming into contact with someone who has it.  Taboo, however, can affect you through the slightest direct or even indirect contact.  This means that there have to be special rituals and practices to get rid of or release taboos once they are transmitted.  It’s kind of like how we would think of a very infectious disease, but without the inherent dramatically negative connotations.

Connections

Both mana and tapu are important for the idea of “power” in Polynesian religions, and are also going to be key concepts for understanding totemism when we look at that in a couple of weeks’ time.  But it doesn’t really seem to relate much to mana as we have it in World of Warcraft.  Certainly the core ideas are transferable – WoW’s powerful sorcerers and spiritual practioners gain their abilities from their mana and have to abide by special rules (like taboos) to keep their power under control – but only very loosely.

If, however, you’re interested in roleplaying (or even fan fiction), the real-world meanings of mana and related ideas can be a clever way to add depth to the World (of Warcraft) and your character’s place in it.  It ceases to be merely a banal resource like gasoline and becomes instead a dangerous, special and mysterious power that underlies everything your character can do and the preservation of which may not be a simple matter.  It also suggests that those classes that don’t have mana as a resource may well actually have “mana” in the broader sense… or, some may prefer to think of them as sort of the luckless and charmless brutes who succeed through sheer force of physical prowess.   Either way, it’s an intriguing idea!

Lo especial que estaría participar en una carrera de estas…