This is an old Body Shop tote bag that I bought years ago. It's been serving as a pegbag now for I don't know how long, and is grubby with age. The quote still holds true, though:
Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first. [Mark Twain]
Midnight Sun
Taken shortly after midnight on 30th June 2007.
Show us the game you're addicted to at the moment.
Submitted by Lena Katrin.
Today's Daily Motivator is a good one:
The main thing that keeps an objective out of reach is your assumption that you cannot reach it. You're able to do precisely what you expect to be able to do.
Are there dreams that you dare not to dream because you've decided that you cannot attain them? If so, then your negative expectation has become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Before you abandon or downgrade your most treasured dreams, consider this. When your goal is personally meaningful and compelling, you can achieve it, whatever it may be.
You are never too old or too young, too rich or too poor, to direct the energy of your life toward a compelling objective. Life is about making a difference, and that's something you can do no matter what your circumstances may be.
There is somewhere you truly wish to go, something you sincerely desire to achieve, right this very moment. Take the time to find it, commit yourself to it, and make the effort to make it happen.
Your dreams represent some of the most valuable gifts you have to give to life. Dare to dream, and allow the best of who you are to be fully expressed.
-- Ralph Marston
One of the things I wish Vox would add as a feature is the ability to add RSS feeds of other sites to the Neighbourhood page, as LJ has done with their syndication feature. I would love to be able to add and read the various feeds that I have elsewhere on the net, such as Damn Interesting and Daily Motivator. I have them on my LJ friends list, and also on my Netvibes account, but it would encourage me to come here more if I could add them here, too.
(I really do need to start updating this blog more. I'm usually a lot more active on LiveJournal than I am here.)
When was the last time you interacted with any sort of wildlife?
Submitted by warpedreality.
This morning, when I said hello to a small blue tit that flitted down for a brief hop along the fence by my kitchen window. I have always been a 'bird person'. Even though I love all animals, I will always stop and watch birds if they're hopping around nearby. I don't know why they appeal to me so much. Perhaps it's because they are so small and yet so hardy, and when I see them sheltering from rain in the bushes in my garden... well, it makes me less inclined to prune. I would rather have a slightly scruffy garden than take away the birds' shelter.
Official website: http://piersfaccini.com/index.html
Tegenaria gigantea, aka the Giant House Spider. That's the bastard I keep getting in my house of late. This page suggests that until 1987 it was listed as "the world's fastest spider", having been clocked at 1.73 ft/sec (1.17 mph) on a level surface. No shit. I just had one charging across the bed at me, making me scream down the phone at my poor mother, who I happened to be talking to at the time.
Scroll halfway down that second page, to the central image. That's lifesize. Probably not much to those of you that live in exotic areas where spiders the size of dinner plates are a common occurrence, but to me that's the biggest fucking spider in the WORLD.
And it was on my bed. Running toward the pillow.
I really really don't want to go to sleep tonight, even though I've sprayed every square inch of the room with RAID...
Michio Kaku's Hyperspace is one of those laymans' science reads that turns quantum physics into something easily understandable, using simple analogies (fish in a pond, the classic 'Flatland' theory etc). I read this many years ago and fell in love with it. I've since bought it for several other people, who have also loved it.
Amazon blurb:
This is the run-away bestseller from one of the world's leading theoretical physicists. Are there other dimensions beyond our own? Is time travel possible? Michio Kaku takes us on a tour of the most exciting work in modern physics, including research into the 10th dimension, time warps, and multiple universes, to outline what may be the leading candidate for the Theory of Everything.
Reviewer comment:This book also delves into the origin and history of higher dimensional concepts, explained lucidly and brilliantly by Mr. Kaku. He explains that higher dimensional objects couldn't be visualized by us (3-D beings) and thus has to be viewed as projections or shadows on our 3-D space or even unravel them in our space(like a "tesseract", which is an unraveled hypercube). Kaku often drives home his point by explaining in terms of 2-D "flatlanders" existing in our 3-D world, which no doubt is a very easy way of understanding these kinds of concepts. This book will also explain theories regarding parallel universes, black holes, worm holes, time travel and death of our universe.
What's your morning beverage of choice? Coffee, tea, juice? Homemade or store-bought?
Simple:
What is your current computer desktop image? Let's see it!
First time I've actually found a QotD that I want to answer - heh! Well here's my current desktop: Paul Bettany:
