Catiag's Journals

Cemetery full, mayor tells locals not to die

BORDEAUX, France (Reuters) - The mayor of a village in southwest France has threatened residents with severe punishment if they die, because there is no room left in the overcrowded cemetery to bury them.

In an ordinance posted in the council offices, Mayor Gerard Lalanne told the 260 residents of the village of Sarpourenx that "all persons not having a plot in the cemetery and wishing to be buried in Sarpourenx are forbidden from dying in the parish."

It added: "Offenders will be severely punished."

The mayor said he was forced to take drastic action after an administrative court in the nearby town of Pau ruled in January that the acquisition of adjoining private land to extend the cemetery would not be justified.

Lalanne, who celebrated his 70th birthday on Wednesday and is standing for election to a seventh term in this month's local elections, said he was sorry that there had not been a positive outcome to the dilemma.

"It may be a laughing matter for some, but not for me," he said.

(Reporting by Claude Canellas, Writing by Andrew Dobbie; editing by Sami Aboudi)

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSL0552076620080305?feedType=nl&feedName=usoddlyenough

P.S.: this is another gem taken from Reuters' newsletter 'Oddly enough' - my favourite newsletter by this news agency.

High on Mount Sinai?

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The biblical Israelites may have been high on a hallucinogenic plant when Moses brought the Ten Commandments down from Mount Sinai, according to a new study by an Israeli psychology professor.

Writing in the British journal Time and Mind, Benny Shanon of Jerusalem's Hebrew University said two plants in the Sinai desert contain the same psychoactive molecules as those found in plants from which the powerful Amazonian hallucinogenic brew ayahuasca is prepared.

The thunder, lightning and blaring of a trumpet which the Book of Exodus says emanated from Mount Sinai could just have been the imaginings of a people in an "altered state of awareness," Shanon hypothesized.

"In advanced forms of ayahuasca inebriation, the seeing of light is accompanied by profound religious and spiritual feelings," Shanon wrote.

"On such occasions, one often feels that in seeing the light, one is encountering the ground of all Being ... many identify this power as God."

Shanon wrote that he was very familiar with the affects of the ayahuasca plant, having "partaken of the ... brew about 160 times in various locales and contexts."

He said one of the psychoactive plants, harmal, found in the Sinai and elsewhere in the Middle East, has long been regarded by Jews in the region as having magical and curative powers.

Some biblical scholars were unimpressed. Orthodox rabbi Yuval Sherlow told Israel Radio: "The Bible is trying to convey a very profound event. We have to fear not for the fate of the biblical Moses, but for the fate of science."

(Writing by Jeffrey Heller, Editing by Alastair Macdonald)

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSN0444950920080304?feedType=nl&feedName=usoddlyenough

Stockings

(Jury tampering, Gil Evgren)

I like stockings. I do, really. I just donâ�™t understand why they rip so easily. I donâ�™t know if itâ�™s some kind of Murphyâ�™s Law, specific for stockings. Something like: whenever you wear stockings they will rip and at the worst possible time. Either that or I have some kind of unsolved Freudian trauma and, unconsciously, rip the stockings myself without noticing it â�“ which would be a sure sign of my dementia. Letâ�™s be honest, the panic of being on the street with ripped stockings is very similar to that feeling of panic when you dream youâ�™re naked on the street/ school/ work and everybody laughs at you.

It reminds me of when I was in university and one of our professors was teachingâ�¦ with his fly open! We were divided between â�˜rolling on the floor laughingâ�™ and â�˜how should I tell him?â�™ I must say I felt a certain sadistic pleasure by seeing a professor in such a situation and somehow â�˜exposedâ�™ in front of his students, even though he was one of my favourite professors. But more than that sadistic pleasure what struck me was that he, who had so far been teaching with his fly open, turned his back to zip it!

'Tis the Season...

Merry Christmas, and Happy Holidays!

Lexidiem tagged me... I guess he doesn't want to see me bored...

Answer the questions, post it in your journal and then pass it on. I'm not tagging anyone, so feel free to tag yourselves (this almost sounds like an insult, but it's not supposed to be one).

Wrapping paper or gift bags? Most of times, wrapping paper; if the bag's cute or if the shop does wrap the gifts nicely (like Sephora) I' rather have them wrapping it.
Tree; Real or Artificial? Artificial. Lasts for years and that way I'm sure I don't have a cut-down-precious-for-our-forests pine tree at home.
When do you put Christmas tree up? 8th December
When do you take the tree down? 6th January
Like eggnog? We don't have eggnog around here. I do like warm wine with spices and some 'gemada' when my mom cares to make some, kind of when Jupiter and Mars are aligned with the Sun (gemada = raw egg yolk + sugar + a bit of Port wine and beaten with a fork until it's fluffy, creamy and light yellow).
Do you have a nativity scene? Yep. This year it's rather minimalist, but I usually like to create a whole village with donkeys, a pond or a river, ducks, sheep and sheperds and whatever comes along. When I was a kid we used to complete the nativity scene with moss and everything. I particularly liked the task of 'watering' the moss to keep it nice and green - plus, it gave me a feeling of being a god (goddess, in this case) to that village: 'Oh, no! A monsoon!', 'We must appease the goddess with an offering of fudge-filled bonbons!'
Favorite gift received as a child? Don't have a clue.
Hardest person to buy for? Grandparents.
Easiest person to buy for? Mom. I like to give her things that will allow her to pamper herself. This year she's getting a zen & spa smartbox (http://www.smartbox.com/).
Worst Christmas gift? Anything that has to do with socks and little supposedly-cutsey-porcelain-things that I'm sure my old aunties would love.
Mail or e-mail a Christmas Card? Both - it's not like my grandparents have an e-mail account...
Favorite Christmas movie? We usually go for lunch + movies on the 24th. I remember that when I went to see Pocahontas I couldn't believe the movie was actually ending that way! 'What?! That's it?! A Disney movie where a character actually dies?! I want my money back!'
When do you start shopping for Christmas? Usually late November/ early December.
Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Nope.
Favorite food to eat on Christmas? Mostly the sweet stuff, but I also like 'roupa velha'.
Clear or colored tree lights? Colored.
Favorite Christmas Song? 'Fairytale of New York', by The Pogues.
Travel during Christmas or stay home? Stay home.
Store bought or homemade gifts? Mostly store bought.
Angel or Star on tree top? Star. An angel on top of the tree reminds of Vlad (yes, the one from Romania... and yes, I can have a very sick imaginatin at times).
Open presents on Christmas Day or Christmas Eve? On the night between them, at midnight.
Most annoying thing about this time of year? Those people who couldn't care less about me in the rest of the year and who 'show up' at Christmas. I used to be one of those people who really live Christmas, but right now I feel a bit disappointed with the world.
Bake at home or Buy? Both.
Lights outside? On the window.
Mistletoe? It's an endangered floral species! No mistletoe for me!

The wonders of Photoshop or the strange case of the contagious absent-mindedness

Many of you have probably seen this image before: the perfume is called "Pleasures delight", by EstÃ©e Lauder and the girl on the photo is, everyone knows, Gwyneth Paltrow. Before getting to my main point let me wander off for a few minutes: starting with the name of the perfume we find ourselves thinking of delicious, tasty and pleasurable things. We don't, however, have much time to let our polluted minds think of less pudic pleasures because everything in this image is so pinkish, so girlie, so cute-little-girl like. Notice the detail of the strawberries and cherries, the pink cakes and flowers, the also pink clothes, the long flowing hair, the I'm-so-happy smile and the cute bike with a little basket and all. For a couple of seconds any woman can feel like she's an English lady sipping her tea in the lawn while watching the gentlmen play cricket.

Now put on your glasses.

I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but... what is that thing on the back of the bike? A cake? I'd rather think that it's some strangely shaped hat box because if she's going around like that with a cake on the back of her bike she should either be working for the Chinese circus or, when she reaches her destination, the cake (if it didn't fall down in the mean time) will be covered in dust, mosquitos and half melted because of the sun and the heat. The basket with fruits, flowers and cakes (all so cute and fluffy) also looks like it's a bit unbalanced (not to mention that it's very little hygienic, to say the least, to go around carrying cakes and fruits in your bike if you know they're going to face the road dust). And what about the light? It's great! Notice that behind her there is light and shadow but she manages to have only the right amount of light on her. This is one special girl. Hmmm... what else? This amazing girl must be, in fact, a kind of "carrier of flowers and cakes" because if she had the habit of eating the cakes she's carrying you'd be seeing a chubbier Gwyneth.

And now for the funny bit: ok, we have this dreamy, sweet, cute, pink image but... notice the right hand.

Just what happened there?! I wonder if it she had an accident in her trainings at the Shaolin monastery that caused her hand to be like that - yes, because only the Shaolin monastery gives the necessary training to be able to ride such a heavy-loaded and fragile-looking bike. And no, it's not because this is a small image; I've seen it in a magazine and it looked the same. It seems like some absent-minded photo editor made a boo-boo with Photoshop here. But if the photo editor had been the only absent-minded person in this story anybody else in the company or at EstÃ©e Lauder's would have noticed that the hand is out of focus, as if it was a rough sketch - not the kind of thing you expect from a world famous company. Can it be that we are witnessing a strange case of absent-mindedness?! Call Dana Scully and Fox Mulder! This is a job for the X-Files!

P.S.: You can also read this at: http://mywanderingsandme.blogspot.com

My Top Ten Bands

I've been tagged by lexidiem (in a 5-minute moment of insanity) so here it goes...

Here are the easy rules:

1) Pick your 10 favorite musical artists.
2) Tag the journal "top 10 bands" so we can have a full tag page of all our lists!
3) Pick 8 more people to do this! Make sure to link them to your original post

Here are mine, in no particular order:

1 - Tom Waits - well, if you check out my 'top 10 celebrity crushes' you'll see how I got to know the wonderful music of Tom Waits. What else can I say?! He's brilliant, from music to lyrics.

2 - Nick Cave - also previously mentioned on my 'top 10 celebrity crushes'. He used to have the 'dark side' type of music but, IMHO, since he became parent of twins (he now has 3 kids) his dark side started to have a more pink undertone. Still, he's a brilliant song writer.

3 - The Beatles - everyone knows The Beatles... what can I say that hasn't been said yet? I believe that destiny sometimes takes a wrong turn: why did The Beatles have to end and not The Rolling Stones?!

4 - Mariza - a name that 95% of the people here will not know. She's a Portuguese singer who used to sing jazz and now sings Fado, a specific type of song, traditional from Lisbon and Coimbra. She's here on my list, not so much because of _her_ work, as an individual, but because she's today's 'Fado diva'. Those of you who never heard Fado will probably just think that I'm being a stupid alternative-wannabe European, trying to be 'different' because I'm referring to a type of music that most of you don't know - I really don't care. It's not like I listen to Fado everyday (or every month!) but I guess I'll always listen to it and love it because of its metaphorical and poetical quality. Plus, you need to have a great voice to be a professional singer of Fado.

5 - Eric Michelet - I defy anyone on buzznet (yeah, right, the 2/3 good souls who will come and read this) to tell me where they've heard of this name before - they haven't. Ok, I'll explain: in 2005, when I was on my Summer holidays, spending some time in the north of France (near Karnak, to be more precise), I once found myself in a small place called Auray. At first glance it looked pretty dull. Just then we found a street that would take us to the old part of town. I remember walking down that street, seeing the river down bellow and hearing beautiful, dream-like music. When I loked there was a man with glasses and a pony tail peacefully playing... a hammered dulcimer! He was selling his own CD (it cost, I believe, 15â‚¬) and I must say it was one of the best CDs I ever bought. It's hard to explain what a dulcimer sounds like if you've never heard one... imagine a guitar with wings, light and ethereal! His music hasn't left my mp3 player since 2005!

6 - Kraftwerk - They were the matrix of the electronic music of today. Some of their songs are more like 'chill out' music and some others, like 'Radioactivity', make you think...

7 - gipsy music from the Balcans - in this one I'm not specifying any band/artist because I know a few of them and they tend to be very similar. I first listened to a gipsy brass band in the OST of 'Underground', a brilliant film by Emir Kusturica. Others followed, like 'Black cat, white cat', only to make my love for this type of music grow even more in me. I must say that I have a certain special sympathy towards the gipsies: I love their 'free' life, their sense of beauty and rhythm, even if I don't agree with how they raise their kids (specially the girls) and with certain 'paralel businesses' they very often have. Anyway, gipsy music makes you want to dance and sing along, like in one of the scenes from 'Underground': 'Louder! Faster!'

8 - Rammstein - their lyrics are raw, strong and not for the faint-hearted! Either you know German or you get a friend who does; translations into English are not so good and there's a lot that can't be translated. In my 3rd year at University I skipped an English literature class to go to their autograph session, before a concert that night in Lisbon. What else? Oh, yes, listening to their songs was a great help when I was preparing for my Zentrale MittelstÃ¼ffe PrÃ¼fungen :-D

9 - Paolo Conte - an Italian songwriter and composer. Brilliant lyrics and music and a good voice. His music is kind of jazzy and very 'danceable' as well.

10 - Carlos Paredes - a genius of the Portuguese guitar, he died a couple of years ago. He lived a hell of a life and, while composing some magnificent music, he had a quite dull professional life - he claimed he couldn't live off of music, because to him that would be like abusing his music. Once, as he was travelling to play abroad, his guitar was lost in all the airport confusion. He later commented with a friend that, at that point, he had considered committing suicide. He used to make his own guitars and he was working in a new type of Portuguese guitar by the time he started having a disease which affected his central nervous system. His death is an irreparable loss - to me, at least.

And in no particular order, I've tagged:
kathy1981, ruipfg, boz48730, rhiwena, kiastar67, raquel23, bennbell and eshalovsyou

More wonders of the Portuguese cuisine

Imagine you're going for a walk downtown or just meeting some friends. It's a warm Summer's day. The sun is burning your skin, you feel the sweat drops on your forehead, your mouth is dry, you'd like to have a cool drink and something to eat but you're not exactly hungry... What would you go for? A coke and a donut? Not if you're in Portugal! Repeat carefully after me: Um pires de tremoÃ§os e uma imperial, se faz favor! (read: umm peeresh the tremohssush ee umma eempereeahl, sse fahsh fahvor)

Let me introduce you to one of our most famous duets: tremoÃ§os (read: tre-moh-ssush) and a cold beer!

I've found several translations for tremoÃ§o (belonging to the group Dicot and the Family Fabaceae) but nevermind the translation, they're good anyway! TremoÃ§os are small yellow flat roundish bean-like things that are particularly good eaten with a cold beer. They have very little taste, apart from the salty flavour they get from being in salty water. If you want to know how to eat them, go to Wikipedia: "they (...) can be eaten by removing the skin and "popping" the seed directly into one's mouth, but can also be eaten with the skin on. Perhaps the best method to enjoy these beans is to "pop" [them, one at a time, please] into one's mouth, removing the outer layer by incising with the front teeth, expelling the tough skin, then relishing the fleshy seed."

If you're already starting to think that Portugal is a strange country that you definetely don't want to visit, leave aside your prejudice and read on: "These legumes were popular with the Romans and they spread their cultivation throughout the Roman Empire. Today, Lupini are most commonly found in Mediterranean countries, especially in Portugal, Egypt, and Italy and also in Brazil & in the Spanish Harlem where it is popular along with beer. (...) In Antalya, Turkey, it is known as Tirmis amongst the local people. The Andean American variety of this bean is the Lupinus mutabilis, a widespread food during the Incan Empire." So you see, we're not alone in our good taste :-D

I've never heard of anyone getting a fat belly from eating these things, in fact I believe you can eat as many as you like without feeling full. Besides, they're rich in fibre and protein and low in fat. Need I remind you that beer has a well-known diuretic effect? What are you waiting for? Start improving your health now! Go down to your local cafÃ© and ask for a handful of tremoÃ§os and your favourite beer!

I took the test!!

I have a thing for personality tests, even if they're just for fun. Here are a few results I'd like to share:

Are You Emo? (I knew the answer to this one all along...) - You Are 8% Emo

You're the furthest thing from emo. Sensitivity is not something you exactly cultivate... and you can't imagine weeping over song lyrics.

The Muppet Personality Test - You Are Dr. Bunsen Honeydew

You take the title "mad scientist" to the extreme -with very scary things coming out of your lab.
And you've invented some pretty cool things, from a banana sharpener to a robot politician.
But while you're busy turning gold into cottage cheese, you need to watch out for poor little Beaker!
"Oh, that's very naughty, Beaker! Now you eat these paper clips this minute." (huh... I don't know about this one, guys... really!)

What Does Your Latte Say About You? - What Your Latte Says About You

You are interested in only pure and simple pleasures (true!). You don't like to pollute your body or mind. You can be quite silly at times, but you know when to buckle down and be serious (also true). Intense and energetic, you aren't completely happy unless you are bouncing off the walls. You have a healthy relationship with caffeine. You're definitely not dependent on it. You are responsible, mature, and truly an adult (well, I'm 27, right??). You're occasionally playful, but you find it hard to be carefree. You are deep and thoughtful (ooooh), but you are never withdrawn.

a belated birthday e-card

This is the e-card I got today for my birthday from CRLI (Centro de RecuperaÃ§Ã£o do Lobo IbÃ©rico = Iberian wolf recovery center). I'm the 'adoptive mom' of a wolf there, Prado (Meadow). Prado is actually my second 'son' - the first one, Lobinho ('little wolf') died 2 years ago, of old age. You can check their website: http://lobo.fc.ul.pt/

I just thought I'd share this - it made me smile :-)

A first time for everything

Well, yesterday was my birthday and this was my birthday cake:
Yes, that's Snow White + 2 swans + a train + some trees. And yes, I just turned 27.
Initially, I had in mind going for a walk in the afternoon - somewhere nice and fresh, like the river. But in the past few days there has been this very very strong wind and being by the riverside might just not be a good idea... So, what is there to do on a Sunday afternoon when it's too windy to be outside? BOWLING!!! And so it was that, for the first time in my 27-year-long life, I went for bowling! :-)
We played 3 games - enough for my arm to be hurting today :-/ but it was fun! :-)
Today, still on that 'first time for everything' line of thought I was working when of my colleagues on the upper floor calls me saying something arrived for me... And so it was that, for the first time in my 27-year-long life, I got the anonymous flower bouquet! No name, no address, just a card saying 'Happy Birthday'. I guess I could call the flower shop and try to find out the name of the sender but... that would spoil the fun!