So I left the house at about 6:45ish to just- get out. Dunno, just felt like I needed to get out. So I went to Geary, up Fillmore, found myself on Broadway @ Fillmore after a while and realized if I kept going north I would NEVER EVER EVER walk back, and walked back to a cafe, had a cuppa, read a while, then walked home.
Just checked Yahoo maps, and they say I walked 2.6 miles.
Funny, I don't feel winded or anything. Maybe I'm not as ridiculously out of shape as I thought I was.
While drinking my tea, I perused a newspaper.
***
The state motto itself ('Virginia is for lovers') seems in direct contradiction to recent decisions Virginians seem to have made. Said decisions are in direct contradiction of US law (for those who don't keep up on modern politics: 25 years ago, the Supreme Court dictated that the law demanded that a marriage in California be recognized in Mississippi, regardless of state statutes insisting that interracial marriage wasn't permitted. So who the hell is Virginia to say 'we aren't going to follow the law of the land'?).
To my eye, it bears note that over 2/3rds of the original colonists in Jamestown, Virginia listed their occupation as 'Gentleman'. This was in 1609: a time when the phrase 'ladies and gentlemen' was not addressed to a group of people at large. These Gentlemen were titled nobility. This suggests that they might well have been used to issuing commands to their manservants, or relying on the ingenuity of said servants.
The first winter in that colony, over 3/4ths of the inhabitants starved to death. The pilgrims did better. Of all the new world colonies in the early 17th century, Jamestown did the utter worst at surviving, save for one.* This perhaps goes to underscore the ingenuity native to the English nobleman: the sheer adaptability to new circumstances, new climes, & the ability to accept change.
It could be opined that since that day, little has changed.
* That one example being Roanoke Colony, which COMPLETELY VANISHED. Nobody ever heard from anyone there again, and the only communication left behind there was the word 'CROTOAN' carved into a log in one of the buildings of the colony.
I might somewhat mitigate this failing by pointing out that Roanoke is the name of a city in Virginia (though, as
alemya points out below, not a colony in Virginia).
Just checked Yahoo maps, and they say I walked 2.6 miles.
Funny, I don't feel winded or anything. Maybe I'm not as ridiculously out of shape as I thought I was.
While drinking my tea, I perused a newspaper.
The state motto itself ('Virginia is for lovers') seems in direct contradiction to recent decisions Virginians seem to have made. Said decisions are in direct contradiction of US law (for those who don't keep up on modern politics: 25 years ago, the Supreme Court dictated that the law demanded that a marriage in California be recognized in Mississippi, regardless of state statutes insisting that interracial marriage wasn't permitted. So who the hell is Virginia to say 'we aren't going to follow the law of the land'?).
To my eye, it bears note that over 2/3rds of the original colonists in Jamestown, Virginia listed their occupation as 'Gentleman'. This was in 1609: a time when the phrase 'ladies and gentlemen' was not addressed to a group of people at large. These Gentlemen were titled nobility. This suggests that they might well have been used to issuing commands to their manservants, or relying on the ingenuity of said servants.
The first winter in that colony, over 3/4ths of the inhabitants starved to death. The pilgrims did better. Of all the new world colonies in the early 17th century, Jamestown did the utter worst at surviving, save for one.* This perhaps goes to underscore the ingenuity native to the English nobleman: the sheer adaptability to new circumstances, new climes, & the ability to accept change.
It could be opined that since that day, little has changed.
* That one example being Roanoke Colony, which COMPLETELY VANISHED. Nobody ever heard from anyone there again, and the only communication left behind there was the word 'CROTOAN' carved into a log in one of the buildings of the colony.
I might somewhat mitigate this failing by pointing out that Roanoke is the name of a city in Virginia (though, as
alemya points out below, not a colony in Virginia).
Though, to be quite honest, I'm fairly disgusted with Virginia m'self. Welcome to the Land of Jerry Falwell and NASCAR.
So I don't suck! :)
If only San Francisco was like it was in the late 1980s...back when you could actually find drugs here other than heroin and cocaine...
Now let's see if you can guess which former SFNetter this is. :)
and on the other stuff...
2: There's a weird flavor to Livejournal, somehow: it's not real. I don't want people walking away taking what's on Livejournal thinking that it's everything I am.
3: I just grabbed one of the base themes of the new stuff, and tweaked at the colors using the GUI they provided, for I am a lazy lazy LAAAZY shit. Amusingly, someone out there actually got THE EXACT SAME COLOR SCHEME.
4: Jerry Garcia died, and the Dead stopped touring, and then Phish stopped touring, and they busted the biggest acid dealers in the US, and the drug scene changed entirely for the worse nationwide. We're honestly unusual in that we can get cocaine.
So I went with purple instead.
P.S. this bit of writing makes me snicker madly. I adore it.
"Gentleman" didn't mean just titled nobility. It meant something more like "somebody with an education who doesn't do manual labor for a living". Highly successful farmers typically referred to themselves as gentlemen if the hard labor was done by servants; the same goes for military officers. Also note that someone with a knighthood is not a nobleman.
The cryptic Roanoke message was "CROATOAN", not "CROTOAN". The Croatoan(s) were a local Indian tribe, so the popular theory is that the settlers were attacked or else their colony collapsed and the survivors moved to the Croatoan villages for refuge.
On the gentleman one, yeah, you're right- and I knew it, too. I went for the dramatic overstatement.
On the Croatoan one- damn I hate that word.
As for editing, I am convinced that correcting other people's text all day long would end up with me becoming psychopathically resentful and jealous of other people's talent at coming up with characters, plots, themes, ... stories. I'd be like Salieri gritting his teeth and demanding an explanation from God about why He bestowed musical genius on Mozart instead of him. I'm bitter enough as it is.
But thanks for the kind words.
Nah. You'd become psychopatically homicidal towards the idiots who misspell "agricultural" as "agrecultural", "agriculteral" or other kre8if invention throughout their paper without even a pinch of logic. Or utterly, intolerant of assholes who use, commas at complete, random. Or you'd swear to find and gut the lazy bastard who misspells the names of his professors and thinks the words "Internet websites and books" make an adequate bibliography. You'd go crazy thinking those candidates for post-natal abortions all have PhDs and you'll only get your BA in 4 more years.
Me, bitter? Where'd you get that idea?
[Sorry for spamming your journal,
but, but...
Re: but, but...
Re: but, but...
Knighthood was based entirely on property (land or moveables). Because knights paid higher taxes, it was in the crown's best interest to make as many as possible and in the interest of upper peasants, merchants, and proffessionals to avoid getting knighted. People used to go to great lengths to hide assests so they'd stay below the limit.
Conclusion:
400 years ago, people in North America needed editors. Little has changed there, either.