The August Fellowship

And so ends an eventful month. August. Important for Prometheus, for a lot has happened, blogistically. Earlier, Prometheus would post only when he felt he had something that must be blogged. Ergo, this blog fair would have one or two entries a month and this would happen about 8 months a year.

The chance visit to the UAE Community blog changed all that. Prometheus made a few, very special friends. The lovely Tainted with her wonderful and razor-sharp writing, the amazing Lizza whose blog won the Bestest Blog award, UAE Creatives and their analysis of advertising and media in UAE, Woke and his Bol Dubai that is always a wonderful read, Terra Shield who has discovered the superhero in her, Gem, the witty lady with a kind heart, Yaxlich who is similarly affected as Prometheus with his third-person speak but is way wittier, SilverSabre who shares Prometheus’ adoration of Metallica and Gibson Les Paul guitars, Rhys and his Noah’s Ark-ish World of Bloggers and many others whose blogs Prometheus stalks. Prometheus is indeed fortunate to have email contact with some of these blogmates. He has found friends. Prometheus dubs these The August Fellowship, for he found them in the month of August and they are indeed august as in ‘impressive, majestic, dignified, noble’.

The Moving (Middle) Finger wrote an amazing 12 posts, including this one, in this August, inspired by the above-mentioned august friends. Prometheus hopes this tribe of friends grows in number and in love. In his current, schmoozy state of mind, he wishes the best for all these blogs and the bloggers behind them and hopes the Moving (Middle) Finger doesn’t fall prey to Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.

Slàinte mhath. (Pronounced Slaan-je-vaah, Gaelic for ‘Cheers’)

PS: Despair not, if your blog doesn't find mention here. We are currently accepting membership to the September Species, bidding starts at US$ 100. Banking details available upon request.

The Curse of Prometheus

Y’all know James Bond. Y’all know that Sean Connery is, was and will be the Best Bond ever, followed by Pierce Brosnan. Y’all know that Daniel Craig is the next Bond. Y’all know that Prometheus is 89% like James Bond but is alas, minus Bond babes.

What y’all don’t know is that in the next Bond flick, James is gonna be ‘jilted by his lover’. The jinx (as in bad luck, not as in Halle Berry) of Prometheus has struck his alter ego.

Y’all be forewarned that if Hugh Hefner dies of gonorrhea it was because some quiz said Prometheus is 93% like him.

Uncrypted Writings

Pained at the extreme discomfort caused to his friends and intimidation caused to others, Prometheus breaks the mystery of the Cryptic Writings. Clues, he cannot provide for he's already said too much. Ergo, the riddle is hereby broken.

Some are hints, the others clues
Look between the I /I.
The I /I as most bloggers would know, are the tags that put text into italics. So the hint is to look for text in italics.

"Prometheus asks his you to put yourself before high as he himself is before the golden state."
Yourself, from your point of view is 'Me', High is a synonym for tall. Similarly, he himself, Prometheus, from his grammatically correct point of view would be 'I'. California, land of another mythical hero, Conan the Barbarian, is the Golden State.

Put these together in the prescribed order. Me, Tall, I, CA
Metallica

The four refer to James (Jaymz) Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, Kirk Hammet and Jason Newsted, the four heroes.
"One moved to another temple". Dave Mustaine, the original lead guitarist, was kicked out for his drug abuse and solo hero antics. He went on to create Megadeth, another temple that Prometheus visits.
"One died", Cliff Burton, the bass guitarist from the first lineup died in a freak accident.

"From homicide till black". Homicide, meaning Kill 'em All, their first produced album and Black, the eponymous album also called the black album by fans. Prometheus loved Metallica's work from Kill 'em All, ...And Justice for All, Ride the Lightning, Master of Puppets and Metallica (eponymous album). Then Metallica changed their sound. Load, Re-load, Live Shit, St. Anger... Prometheus stopped listening to Metallica. Ergo, the four deities fell from the grace of Prometheus.

Finally, the stress on One indicated Prometheus' love for the Metallica song of the same name. The pic clue was originally intended to be a still from the One video that was to be the next clue. Similarly, the Four Rohirrim. LOTR fans would know Rohirrim are the horse-lords or horsemen. Four Horsemen is another Metallica number favorited by Prometheus.

Prometheus expected the wielder of the Argentum Sword, or SilverSabre, a blogger who loves Metallica and guitars, to solve this. Maybe Prometheus didn't give him enough time.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the code is cracked.

Cryptic Writings

Prometheus, weary of funny posts, puts forth
A riddle to anyone who cares to try.
Some are hints, the others clues
Look between the I /I.

---

Four heroes. Four deities. Demigods. From homicide till black. Fell from the grace of Prometheus. One moved to another temple, one died, others remain, but not the same. How he wishes things had not changed. That the Four Rohirrim had stayed themselves. Not even he can stop time. Prometheus asks his you to put yourself before high as he himself is before the golden state.

---

Next week (or whatever time is convenient to Prometheus): A pic, a clue, a hint.
O wielder of the Argentum Sword, I expect you to answer this.

Schmaken, not Schmirred

Quizzeria Duo. Feeling a bit low on self-esteem after a few recent events, Prometheus took the What Action Hero are you? quiz. And the results are:



You scored as James Bond, Agent 007. James Bond is MI6's best agent, a suave, sophisticated super spy with charm, cunning, and a license's to kill. He doesn't care about rules or regulations and somewhat amoral. He does care about saving humanity though, as well as the beautiful women who fill his world. Bond has expensive tastes, a wide knowledge of many subjects, and his usually armed with a clever gadget and an appropriate one-liner.


Erm... Intelligent, yes. Sexy babes, they think I'm a bowl of soup. Save the world, yes. Sexy cars, uh can I borrow your tricycle? Wide knowledge of many subjects, yes. Vodka Martini, naah... gimme whiskey any (day/noon/evening/night). My M is me mommy, Q is mommy too.

Hulk no like quiz. Hulk smash QuizFarm. Rrrraaaaarrgghhhhhh!!!

The Bestest Commercial yet?

This Honda ad was made by Cog. It's pretty old now but still enthralls me. What's special about this Rube Goldberg contraption is that NO CGI WAS USED. It took five months, A$ 6 Million and 606 takes to create this gem. The only post-production touchup is the lighting on the car doors. Needless to say, it got the gold at Cannes.

Click to get the ad. The Autoplay was getting a tad irritating.

All rise as we salute Cog.

View from the Promethean Observatory

Observation 1: Shock value is in. Surfing for good blogs can be like finding intelligence in governments (not to claim that this blog is of any worth). When you do hit something interesting, you come upon descriptions of personal preferences of erm.. innerwear, or the refusal to wear them. Then there are the profanities. 'Oh, I went to the f#(kin church today'... I told him to shove it up his @*s... She's getting a tattoo near her...' No, Prometheus isn't on Etisalat's payroll. He abhors censorship. But freedom isn't supposed to mean anarchy. Prometheus could be wrong. The sheer number of intelligent folk subscribing to shock value makes him wonder if he's got his bearings messed up.

Observation 2: Google Earth is out. So long are you are Google Earth-ing the Lands of Bush or those of his pet Blair, you are fine. Try searching Dubai, UAE. By default, the earth centers onto the UAE embassy in, where else but, the United States of America. So you enter United Arab Emirates and hey presto, the world zooms onto the sandbox. Er, did I mention it zooms far too deep till the screen goes bluish green (or greenish blue). The United Arab Emirates, if Google Earth is to be believed, did an Atlantis and sunk to the bottom of the ocean. Wait, you zoom out till you see brown, could be land. Yes sir, we have United Arab Emirates back on land. The center of Dubai is somewhere in Naif / Nasr Square. Ajman is, well, near Atlantis. Which is when Prometheus hit the nifty little x on the top right and switched to Map24. Mucho better, if you aren't looking for the bottle of rum you hid on your building terrace.

Observation 3: Companies who fax doodles for location maps are morons. You are to visit a company. You ask them for their location. They say they'll fax you a map. You wait. You wait even more. Just as you are about to call them up and ask them to fax the damn thing if they're done painting their nails, in comes the fax. Map? It's more like a bleeping Picasso imitation by a bleeping piece of bleep overdosed on an illegal substance. Requiring you to undertake an exercise that results in Observation 2 above. A phone call to clarify things results in a landmark given as 'the 3rd traffic light' on a street with 17 of them. Excuse me lady, but those coordinates would work if Prometheus were of the canine ilk. Woof! to that.

Samurai Song, The Sun Never Says

Two poems that have been on the mind of Prometheus. These may seem difficult to read since the linebreak is at seemingly odd places. But such is poetic license. Prometheus is off to apply for one.

Samurai Song
-Robert Pinsky

When I had no roof I made
Audacity my roof. When I had
No supper my eyes dined.

When I had no eyes I listened.
When I had no ears I thought.
When I had no thought I waited.

When I had no father I made
Care my father. When I had
No mother I embraced order.

When I had no friend I made
Quiet my friend. When I had no
Enemy I opposed my body.

When I had no temple I made
My voice my temple. I have
No priest, my tongue is my choir.

When I have no means fortune
Is my means. When I have
Nothing, death will be my fortune.

Need is my tactic, detachment
Is my strategy. When I had
No lover I courted my sleep.

---

The Sun Never Says
-Hafiz

Even
After
All this time
The sun never says to the earth,

"You owe Me."

Look
What happens
With a love like that,
It lights the
Whole Sky.

Thanks to Suhit San for sharing these with me.

Quizzeria Uno

Quiz fever's been doing the rounds. Prometheus has been blogsurfing quite a bit these days, given that he has not much to do asides from picking navel lint. Way too many blogs feature this quiz result thing. But when I see quizzes on some of the blogs I like (Loud shout to Lizza, Tainted) I have to play 'keeping up with the whatztheirnames' (Jones is too Pommie and I couldn't spell Krzynsltsky).

But Prometheus has to be different, doesn't he? So he doesn't take the 'favorite celeb you resemble' quiz. Something caught his eye. And it still hurts. The 'what will your obituary say' quiz. Being denied euthanasia (wonder why they call it euthanasia, I mean, youth in europe might want to kill themselves too), he jumped at the quiz. And he shares the results, as are supposed to be. Therefore:

'What will your obituary say?' at QuizGalaxy.com

Prometheus the Software Guy knows how horribly inadequate these quizzes can be, but this one gets the 'Yer damn right on the spot' award.

We are now accepting your 'heartiest condolences'. No faeces, I did come across this one.

Terms of Reference

At the cost of undermining the mystique of those Latin terms that appear on this blog, I translate them, upon request of a friend.

• Verbum Sapienti Satis Est - A word to the wise is sufficient. Which may be construed to mean people who don't understand my posts are morons, not that I'm implying it.



• Drinkeo Ergo Cogito. Cogito Ergo Sum - Is the abridged version of Drinkeo Ergo Cogito. Cogito Ergo Sum. Ergo Drinkeo Ergo Sum. Which may be construed to mean 'I drink therefore I think. I think therefore I exist. Therefore, I drink therefore I exist. In case you did not comprehend, refer Verbum Sapienti Satis Est above.



• Veni, Vidi, Volo in Domum Redire - Means I came, I saw, I want to go home. Defined as the activity undertaken by readers of this blog in response to being overcome with sheer nausea.
  

Why Latin in the first place? Because its uber cool to use foreign words like uber. Also, one can write insulting things that masquerade as compliments, since Latin is Greek to most people (Greek insults would be Latin to them, but not so uber cool as Latin ones that are Greek to them).

Finally a limerick on the subject. It is not mine, therefore not unbearable.
Latin is a language
Dead as dead can be
It killed the ancient Romans
Now its killing me.

Whoever wrote this poem, you are credited ab imo pectore, therefore do not consider litigation, considering that I am represented pro hac vice by Advocatus Diaboli who will ensure that you are ex tempore visited upon ad infinitum by your matre legem.

For non-Verbum Sapienti Satis Est folks, that means, I thank 'from the bottom of my heart' whoever wrote this poem. Don't sue me, cuz my lawyers are the same guys who represent 'ol Lucifer, and they will ensure that your mother in law moves in with you immediately and forever.

Prometheus, the master of simplifying things by compounding them.

Weirding the language

Prometheus remembers the arguments with Suhit over the evolution of the language. ‘It is the nature of language to evolve. Nobody speaks Queen’s English the way she spook it’, he would jest. The blood of Prometheus the Puritan would boil. Reverence for his grammar teachers and love for the languages would cause him to revolt. ‘I agree that language has to evolve. We did not have words like motherboard and podcast in English till a few decades ago. But (yes, Prometheus did evolve enough to disregard the ‘Never begin a sentence with “but” rule’) evolution does not mean mutation’, Prometheus would retort.

Prometheus routinely witnessed the assault on English in Mumbai newspapers, but it was his relocation to the UAE that would make him see bloodbath. Not the Middle East conflict, but its reportage. Sample a headline, dear readers: ‘Region Aids Hub’. Though he would like to cast a sadistic smirk at your torment, Prometheus will put you out of your misery. The news item below the headline went on about the Arab ‘region’ providing ‘aid’ to war-struck Lebanon through Dubai, the financial ‘hub’. Prometheus was reminded of an item in the Times of India that went something like ‘man kills wife for having an affair with a chopper’, which at first boggled the mind of Prometheus as to why would a woman have an affair with a chopping tool. This was before he realized that his own love life or the lack (of love and life) thereof could drive him to taking an irresistible attraction to a 65535-piece ratchet socket set. He consoled himself out of this relationship when he came up with ‘she loves me’ on the 2749th bit of his 2750-way multi spanner.

Having nothing better to do, he trawled the Internet when he came upon ‘verbing weirds the language’. Prometheus heard what felt like an anguished moan emanating from the final resting places of M/s. Wren and Martin. Apparently, it has become fashionable to use verbs and nouns interchangeably. As in ‘I architect software solutions to live but I live to blog’ or ‘the United States partners India as it transitions into a global economy. This deeply impacted Prometheus the Software Guy, who insists on closing every open brace (with a matching closing brace (in his subthoughts)).

Powerless to halt the transmogrification of the fair spræk of Engelond, Prometheus went back to mind his r’s (not arse) and s’s. Everyone else already minds the p’s and q’s.

Afflicted by nostalgia, Prometheus leaves you with this Middle English poem excerpted from Wikipedia: Middle English.

Whan that Aprill with his shoures sote
The droghte of Marche hath perced to the rote,
And bathed euery veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
Inspired hath in euery holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe course yronne,
And smale fowles maken melodye,
That slepen al the niȝt with open ye—
So priketh hem Nature in hir corages—
Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, couthe in sondry londes;
And specially, from euery shires ende
Of Engelond to Caunterbury they wende,
The holy blissful martir for to seke,
That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seke.

Translations: When April with its sweet showers has pierced the drought of March to the root, and bathed every vein in such liquor from whose power the flower is engendered; when Zephyr [the west wind] also, with his sweet breath has blown [into life] in every wood and heath the tender crops, and the young sun has run his half-course in the sign of the Ram [Aries], and small fowls make melody, who sleep all night with open eye - so Nature stimulates them in their hearts - THEN people long to go on pilgrimages, and palmers [i.e. pilgrims carrying palm leaves] to seek strange coastlines, to distant saints [i.e., holy places], known in various lands; and specially, from every shire's end [i.e. the border of every county] in England, to Canterbury they journey, to seek the holy blissful martyr [Thomas à Becket] who helped them when they were sick. (source: Wikipedia)

Gollum goes to Iraq via Lebanon

It has anthropophobia. Yes precious, Anthropophobia. The fear of society, of humankind. Fear? No precious, it does not fear anyone. It detests humankind. Nasty humans. They makes it sick. Yes precious, sick.

They kills everything. Tree, animal, their own kind, nature. Kill, murder, pillage, burn. That’s all they does, yes. They murders babies too, the nasty men. And they are proud of their devastation precious. They gloats how they can destroy more than others. Sick, sick, sick. Liars, murderers, thieves. Not orcses precious, Man. Yes. We hates them.

They divided everything precious, everything. They divided the land, divided the water, divided the Gods. As if they owned it all. Nasties. Filthy little men. And now they trespass into the lands of others of their own kind precious. They wants more. Yes, always wants more. More land, more water, more power. And they says their god is better than that of others. Yes precious, the nasty fools think they know more about god than He himself does. Once they appropriate god, they will murder Him too precious, yes they will. They wants to take His place precious.

Filthy creatures. God did not create them precious. He would never create something so filthy. They were monkeys once. Yes precious, naked monkeys, baboons, with their red bottoms and dangling testicles. Taken by the Dark Lord, tortured and mutilated. Perfected into filthy nasty Man. The torture put their bottoms and testicles in their heads precious. That’s what they thinks with, yes, they thinks with their bottoms and testicles. The filthies.

And they calls us wretched because we eats raw fish. They lays down moral standards, yes they does. They says incest is bad precious, very bad. Something that only perverts do. Are they all not perverts precious? Yes they are. Don’t they rape their own mother earth in the name of a father in heaven? Yes they does.

That’s why we hates them. We don’t needs them precious, we don’t.

The rock and pool is so cool
Beneath our feet.
All we wish is for a fish
So juicy sweet.