Daily Archives: 3/4/2005

Chinese Calligraphy

Chinese CalligraphyYou know, the thing I really like about Chinese calligraphy isn’t that I have an abiding interest in China, or in learning the Chinese language, or even in trying to become more comfortable with a brush and ink.

It really is just that for the couple of hours that our classes tend to last, I literally can’t think of anything else. It really requires an odd combination of both concentration and relaxing that seems hard to achieve with other activities, even ordinary drawing.

Of course, I’m not really any good at it, but that’s beside the point too.

An aside: this character is (supposed to be) YONG (æ°¸), meaning “forever” or “eternal”. It contains eight strokes, and is said to contain all that you need to know to master Chinese calligraphy. Seems really simple, doesn’t it? Try drawing one that looks good, perhaps with some online instruction. It’s trickier than it looks.

Student Arrested For Terroristic Threatening Says Incident A Misunderstanding

One of my (admittedly many) pet peeves is when law enforcement overreacts to a situation. Today’s example comes fro Clark County Kentucky, where an 18 year old student has been arrested for writing a story about a zombie attack on a high school. He claims that he was merely writing a short story, and that it was all taken out of context. The police call it a second degree felony.

He’s currently being held in a detention facility after his bail was raised to five thousand dollars.

I’m glad that the police and district attorney of Kentucky are occupying themselves with trying to prevent their high schools from being overrun by zombies. After all, threat of zombie attack is every bit as credible as the threat of WMDs.

Idiots.

Sick of Rain

Damnit, when I was living in Oregon, I could put up with this crappy weather, but I live in California now. Can’t we just call it quits on the rain and have a couple of hundred days of consecutive sunshine? I’m tired of puddles damnit, I think my webbed toes are coming back.

And what’s with the perversity of the universe? Lately some mornings have been remarkably nice, so I put on a happy Hawaiin short-sleeve shirt, and go to work. But when work is done, it’s crappy and raining again!

I’ve had it.