Beta has made good on her threat and started a blog of her own.

Don’t forget to enter the Annual Valentine’s Day Limerick Contest.

Read the rules first! This means you!
• Must be a real limerick! I.e. a verse form of five chiefly anapestic verses of which lines one, two and five are of three feet and lines three and four are of two feet, with a rhyme scheme of aabba!
• Has no chance to win unless it includes medical pioneer, microscopic animal or skin condition!
• Deadline 14 February 2005!

Oh, and link the contest already (the original post, not this one).

• Just because you find god doesn’t mean you get to keep him, (or her, or whatever).

• Having epiphanies doesn’t necessarily make you less of an asshole.

There are times, you know, there are times the epiphanies and realizations and Aha-Erlebnisse come so fast and thick that to god I must look like a toaster shorting out, sparks and smoke everywhere.

God: Aren’t you going to unplug it? It could start a fire.
God2: Hold your horses. I’m looking for my insulated gloves.

Just because you have an epiphany or a realization, or figure something out, that doesn’t automatically give you the rest of the day off.

A couple days ago I had had it. I was tired and needed a moment to do some Tarot cards. I have this deck of regular Tarot cards (Crowley) and this other deck of 0sho Tarot cards, which are more colorful and have this Zen bent to them. 0sho is the name people apparently call the B4gw4N Shr33 R4jn33sh nowadays. The B4gw4n was a guru whose followers tried to give townspeople s4lmonella p0isoning in the town near their 4shram in Oreg0n when I was a kid and living not too far away. We followed the case with a certain interest. It was rumored they had s3x on the 4shram grounds.

So I keep that in mind when I read the explanations of the cards in that set. I drew just one card, because this one card was yelling my name. It turned out to be the card for Experience, and the explanation mentioned experiencing nature directly, and looking into the eyes of a child and paying attention to it, so I put the cards away and played with Gamma for the rest of the day. And we invented the Game.
Last night I drew another card and got the Fool, which is the first card in that deck and a symbol that has accompanied me for the last 25 years.
The picture shows a guy holding a flower, stepping off a cliff.

Handed to me by Horst (read his disclaimers, they more or less apply to me too).

1. Total amount of music files on your computer:
   I don’t know. The tech guy erased a lot of it accidentally when he goofed around with my operating system. At home I have, I think, one harp song (someone playing “La Source”) my daughter was learning. Here at work I have about 600MB. Much of it legal. Most of it uploaded from CDs I bought.

2. The last CD you bought was:
   Pff. What was it? Nick Cave Greatest Hits or something like that.
   3. What is the song you last listened to before reading this message?
   Most likely part of “Man! IFeel Like a Woman!” by Shania Twaine on the radio on my morning commute, followed by part of something on the Sepultura CD (Choke) currently in my car stereo.
   4. Write down 5 songs you often listen to or that mean a lot to you.
   Anner Bylsma playing the Bach Cello Concertos on a Stradivarius (not just one song, a double CD set). Something by Apocalyptica. A modern Welsh composition for harp my daughter plays, the name of which I can’t remember, something in Welsh. “Jenny From the Block” by Jennifer Lopez. One more that will occur to me on my drive home, for which I’m late and must leave now.
   5. Who are you going to pass this stick to? (3 persons) and why?
   Jessica, Joeri and D. Because they’ll have something interesting to say. But I’ll just list it here, I’m to lazy to mail it to them.

Gamma and I took turns making up games yesterday until we finally arrived at one that suited us:

1. Draw a playing field on a piece of paper

2. Each player gets a die
3. Players roll simultaneously
4. Players take turn, one player per roll, making up the rules, i.e. how to play the dice that have been rolled. Such as, “I got the biggest number, so I get to use both dice” or “we tied, and I’m youngest, so I get both” or mine’s bigger, and even, so I go 6 forward and you go three backwards and skip a turn.”

Gamma took a very evil delight in the game, and in the prospect of playing it with her sister when Beta returns home.

Announcing the second annual Metamorphosism.com St. Valentine’s Day Limerick Contest, which is actually the fourth annual contest of its kind, having been held last year here and the two previous years at my old blog Feral Living here and here.

Rules:

• Deadline is 14 February 2005

• Post entries in comments to this post
• You may enter as often as you like
• Entry must be an actual limerick
• Last year we did psychiatrists/psychologists, and philosophers the year before that… Extra points this year for references to medical pioneers, microscopic animals and skin conditions.
• More arbitrary rules to come. Feel free to mail me suggestions.
• Same with the prize

As always, candy heart courtesy of Acme Heart Maker

(BTW, fixed the comments, which I h4XX0r3d earlier goofing around. Here is the first entry, sent to me by Joeri while the comments were broken:

“Look! It’s snowing”, said Fritz in Berlin
(He’s a rather fat guy with bad skin)
It’s his head which he shakes
That produces the flakes
And the winter has yet to begin).