It's hard to write a serious criticism of historical portrayals of Robert Baden-Powell (founder of Boy Scouts) when the book yunu  gave me on dirty history claims his favourite pastime was watching and photographing his young Boy Scouts swim naked.

Maybe I should just give up and write about that instead.

Americans can be so incredibly moronic.

Can everyone remember this bus ad campaign?

It was run by a woman called Ariane Sherine, comedian and writer for the Guardian's Comment is free column on their website.

Several groups of Christians tried to have the advert pulled down, despite their own adverts claiming that anyone who didn't believe in God would go to hell. A nice addition to your daily commute. A cup of coffee, sit down, bus journey and a threat of damnation. No 'probably'. Anyway, they failed in the UK.

Bring in America. They had the incredibly abusive, horrific, nasty and downright evil slogan:


They were removed from the buses. Later on the advertising agency claimed they were not approved, despite counter claims by the Atheist organisation.

“I was disturbed, personally, by the advertisement and I can understand why other Iowans were also disturbed by the message that it sent,” Governor Culver said. He declined to answer questions about freedom of speech for anyone who wasn't Christian.

How can a society that claims to be 'free'  and tries to allow diversity of religion attempt to assimilate people from other religions such as Jews and Hindis, but deny that right to people who do not believe in any God?

I don't really like the style. The eyes are so weird, and the main character, Battler, does just not look like that in the visual novels.
This is Umineko no Naku Koro Ni, the 'sequel' to Higurashi. Even though there have been over 50 hours of Visual Novel released in four Episodes, no-one is quite sure what it is yet. The plot is amazing. Think of is as a combination of Phoenix Wright-style accusations, logical devices, philisophical life views, human methods vs magic (does magic exist), and THE MOST HORRIBLE HORRIBLE HORRIBLE VIOLENT DEATHS EVERY ON THE SCREEN. The textual descriptions of the deaths are bad enough. They can't make them the same in the anime... they just can't. If you thought the fingernail scene was awful in Higurashi, then Umineko is so much worse. But so much better at the same time. The mystery is much deeper than the Higurashi mystery, the characters diverse and revealing, and the thought required is massive. A few familiar faces from Higurashi pop up too.
It's 1986, on a family conference in Rokkenjima. And the three days in Rokkenjima, like in Higurashi, are unescapable. It's similar - I loved the repeated plot device in the original, and it works even more well in Umineko. It may, as it progresses, reveal more about the nature of Hinamizawa too, although how much that isn't sure yet. This is a world of Witches and demons, of summoning and closed room mysteries, yet it  may all be caused by humans. Perhaps what you see on the screen is just an interpretation of events - the whole thing is in limbo between magic and human methods. I advise you to watch it, but I don't believe the anime will live up to the amazing standard the game has set.

In other news, there's going to be a private enquiry on Iraq. It's obvious that the war was never about weapons, and the secrecy of the enquiry combined with the nature of the investigation (the 'relations' with Iraq in the last 10 years, rather than the cause of the war) makes it obvious that the nature of the war is something that the government do not want to be disclosed.

UMINEKO NO NAKU KORO NI PART 4 FULL PATCH IS OUT

watch all productivity go out the window.

It's kind of turbulent at the moment. Seriously turbulent, if you haven't realised/are abroad/don't like politics. Interesting too though. I don't really know how long Gordon Brown can hang on fro,  bu the thing is that he might not really be willing to leave. He's spent the last 10 years paving his way to Number 10 (even though, ironically, due to the sizes of the houses, he was living in No. 10 that whole time, and TB was in Number 11 due to his big family), and he's hardly going to pave his way out of it, as so far as he's not forced out.
Some people look at Thatcher and compare today to her resignation/boot in 1990 - it's sort of comparable, but not really. The Tories have a party constitution which allows for things like a secret ballot on Party Leadership, but Labour doesn't really. And Thatcher had a Cabinet to give her the boot, while GB seems to have managed to scramble around and grab some people from the Party (and not from the Party) to form a quasi-loyal cabinet. Still questions over David Milliband and Alan Johnson over leadership though, despite their protests - we saw with Caroline Flint's resignation yesterday that things can go topsy-turvy (she proclaimed her loyalty just the day before).
Frankly, there is a public cry for either a leadership change or a General Election, and yet the only one able to do either of those things is Gordon Brown. But the results of the European Elections come out tomorrow evening (oops, today, it's past 12), and those could be devastating - Labour could sink to 4th, below even UKIP. There is still shaky ground here - if a letter goes round backbenchers with 80 MPs signing it, then there still could be a leadership contest. But as Nick Robinson pointed out, even that is not the be all and end all - a point some peple are refusing to pick up on is that GB could fight that, and win.
I guess we'll see, really.

I'm doing volunteer work at the CAB now (Citizens Advice Bureau). I have the fun job of reception, but it is actually quite good. It's sort of the 'front line' of it all. Some people come in and are totally off their rocker, others come in and start blurting out their life story to you, and others come in in new ways you weren't even expecting. And when no-one is waiting, I can read a book, something which I don't do nearly enough of, and it is sort of a relief - like how on a train when you read because it is the most convenient thing, you enjoy it more, and that is what it is, really. Also makes me feel 'academically enriched', or rather, less guilty for all the time I spend doing stuff, especially online, which isn't really very useful. A balance is needed, maybe? I hope this is it =w=

Got another phone, too. The old one was just a brick, sure it was touchscreen, but it was a touchscreen brick. This one is nice, and has a nice camera, which makes a change. Since I can't be bothered with diaries or anything like that, I'm trying for a 'photo a day' thing at the moment, not of me, but of something I see. It's hard to remember to do it, frankly, but it should be quite nice if I remember.

Aghh it's cold in this room. I suppose the blinds aren't shut. I can see a moth trying to fly at the window from the outside. Not a massive fan of moths, they're just not very nice, and look a bit mouldy. Not a good look. And my external HDD made a sound a while ago that sounded like a circular saw. It was quite scary. The data seems okay though, after I rushed to turn it off. I wonder what it was, and I sure hope it doesn't happen again.

Must not stop highlighting

Must not stop reading this book and hoping it will magically be remembered

Aghh why is there always so much time to do everything else? Now I just want to insert a day between today and tomorrow. I'll call it Tmoueday.

Exactly one month and 11 days after the G20 leaders, such high profile names as Barack Obama, Silvio Berlusconi, Gordon Brown and Angela Merkel met in London Dockland's own ExCeL Centre, another world conference occurred. This one was much farther reaching, stretching further across the globe to welcome more Nation_-tans into its halls and courtyards, and sometimes reaching right back into the past to yank long dead nations, alliances and empires to the forefront of modern decision making.


an account of the day by Russia


( Perestroika Photos! ) .


China lavi_3 and Hong Kong


Seychelles


It is I...


Leclerc! (yunu )


International Austrian Extramarital Relations Starring rosiael 


It's our own axis of red.


hikaraseru  as Estonia


pandarosi  as Liet


A re-enaction of the war of Austrian Succession, for those who missed it.


Sleepy in Athens (bushy_haired )


Sleepless in Seattle


Sealand and Spain


Russian Reflexes capture the cork


We won best skitski, which was good, da?

and all of these pictures and some more are on my Flickrski, da?

Thanks to everyone who made the day what is was. There were so many, I won't even try to name you all, suffice to say that everyone who I am referring to will become one with Russia in due course, so names are hardly necessary.


SKIT VIDEOS:

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgAj5uGfAMk&feature=channel at around 4:30 onwards
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUoTroWSYx0&feature=channel at around 5:50 onwards
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXtvsC1QHhs&feature=channel at around 4:45 onwards
Part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKML6JgnITM&feature=channel at around 4:05 onwards
Part 5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nc_hky_sNk4&feature=channel at around 1:10 onwards

Another version/set:
Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMRfjkbPSgY
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-T8_X2hdMQ
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fh-P-cjeNHc
Part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqyQP-tbjPE
Part 5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjJzGOWEbnc

VARIOUS: http://www.youtube.com/user/AnnabelD

HQAudio Version of Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FswBs8GWY_o&feature=channel_page
HQAudio Version of Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZztDvqtp0R8&feature=channel

Yet another version:
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhSUA8lY_ew
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6VmcAAFwuI.</div>

Posted to my dA at MagiMika too.

As you may or may not know, Ivan has sent Arthur lots of snowstorms recently (like, over a foot) which have come OVER THE SEA, And then one day, (read: today) Russia appeared before me in my garden...

( HE'S WALKING THROUGH THE AIR... )

UAAAAAH.

I was just watching 'Sora wo Kakeru Shojo' procrastinating and LOLing at Sunrise essentially parodying themselves. I mean WHAT. 'I HAVE CONTROL', and Lelouch is a big pyramid robot who likes Earl Grey tea and wants to be a 'real englishman'. And it was on YouTube. And when you clicked 'High Quality' I was like O_O woooooooooow thats like MKV. It was SUPER HIGH QUALITY - like a window in your computer screen.

Anyway... when I clicked on part 3... it didn't work... YOUTUBE HAD REMOVED IT ALL WHILE I WAS WATCHING PART TWO T^T

</anger release>

Also, ALI PROJECT do its OP. They released the single, but I don't really like the song. OTL.

Well, George Bush has finally left the White House, eight years after he should have done, and the world seemed to be unified in rejoicing that fact. No matter what your political beliefs may be, seeing how the whole world seems to associate America with a facial expression halfway between pain and disgust at the moment due to terrible economic and foreign policy, any sort of refreshment has to be a good thing. Thank goodness he didn't have a chance to be re-elected, or sod's law says he would have been.
( OPINIONATED CUT )

One can't help but wonder... does all of this mean that Hetalia will lose its reckless, crazy HERO character?

From New Years Day to today whizzed past like a can of flying tomatoes. And that would be the tomatoes that are flying, not the can. I have so much stuff that I should really  be keeping on top of orz, and I've been trying to do it by not using MSN or going out too much, but all that seems to be doing is reducing total productivity, not focusing it on one area.
And another thing. I keep buying books. You know how Waterstone's have those green Classics which are printed by Penguin and cost £2? Well, they only get some in, and only sometimes, so when I see them, I have to buy them. And large history tomes have been bought, like Orlando Figes babbling about Russia, some woman talking about the history of Europe, and Andrew Marr talking about the history of Britain.

AND I WANT TO GET DOWN TO READING THEM BUT IT FEELS LIKE I'M NOT BEING PRODUCTIVE which to a certain extent I wouldn't be as it would just be a slightly less meaningless form of procrastination.

And HETALIA AXIS POWERS ANIME is coming out soon. I kind of REALLY WANT IT, yet then again, I don't want it to become well known. It has MAHUSIVE potential as a series, and I'm sure lots of people would like it, but I don't want it to become anything more than a obscurity with a pleasant fanbase.

I really want to play Umineko No Naku Koro Ni too, but due to a series of unfortunate events, I have been left with a Linux computer and a Mac in my possession, and no Windows or way to get Windows. OTL. Frederica Bernkenstal, I'M COMING SOON!



Oh, and belated Merry Christmas and New Years to all.

This is going to be a hard time for us all.

Bankers - a profession where you have to exhume confidence from every pore of your body - are publicly fretting about the state of affairs.

If you think you are safe, you probably aren't. The banking system is all built on the same foundation. And its collapsing.

I know a person who deals in property who has bought gold bars with half of his savings and buried them, in an effort to try and have something safely put away.

I hope everything goes okay for all my friends, and people reading this - that you miss the collapsing banks and have money somewhere safe.

Mika

Passport to Pimlico is the best film.


Ever.
( Passport to Pimlico )

No, contrary to what you probably assume, it's not talking too much, although that is a separate problem. I've almost away had that whevever I open my jaw fully, it clicks, without fail on one side. Now just now it is doing it on both sides and is really rather uncomfortable. It does not feel nice T^T.

Anyway, I tried a 'drabble generator' that I believepandarosi found on the Geass comm and I tried it out with some Hetalia countries: Russia and Lithuania. The results are below.


( Russia and Lithuania )

... LOL

Sorry for the random spam, gaiz.