Hello, dharma pals. =) I have a very mundane question for you.

I meditate with a Vipassana sangha on Sundays. On the first Sunday of every month there's a little potluck afterward. I ordinarily flee from this event, as I'm not very imaginative where food is concerned. Every once in a strange while, though, I like to make tea eggs. Making them is joyful to me, like a little ritual. The boiling tea/spice/soy mixture perfumes my apartment, and the eggs come out looking like marble. I've just gotten some eggs from a local farm with free-range chickens. So just now, I thought: say, wouldn't some locally/humanely-sourced tea eggs be lovely funny things to bring to sangha potluck?

But then I thought hrm, not vegan. Would that be Not OK? I know the snacks people bring are always vegetarian, but vegan I'm not sure. I will first carefully gauge the level of ova-consumption among my fellow sitters so I don't make a terrible faux pas. In the meantime, though, I just thought I'd bounce it off you guys. This is not an invitation to debate the role of veg*nism in Buddhism! It's just a question about wanting to offer something, and not wanting to disrespect others in doing so.

What do you think? Skilled? Or OMG So Not? I know that folks will probably respect my intentions, but still. One likes to get it right the first time if one can.

stockings are stuffed....the food is ready to be thrown in the oven tomorrow - and amazingly enough, the kids asked me to read "A Visit From St. Nicholas"  lol

Christmas Eve 2009 is drawing to a close for me.  I hope everybody has a safe and wonderful holiday! 

Ethylene Vinyl Acetate. This chemical is now added to cigarette paper to make it extinguish itself. This chemical does not yield to the metabolism. This is a direct attack on the health and well being of the population.
( tl;dr )

well everybody else is doing this so i thought i might make my own contribution about who i think will get nominated/win the Oscars. this is partly what i want and partly what i think will happen

and i am only doing the categories that i find interesting.

( my guessing at what the Oscars will do and so on )

Hello Fellow Explorers!

I have a unique request, and a chance to help preserve historical information for hopefully several more years. A beloved website of mine, www.pinetreeline.org will be closing down for good at the end of the year. So I've launched a project to maintain the information about this line of Radar Stations, and hope to launch a new site in 2010.

So why am I posting this here? Simple, I know that there are people on this site spread out across all of Canada, several might be near former bases or have visited them in the past. I would like to include your photos on my new site, fully credited to the photographer of course!

So if you have such things you want to contribute, post a comment here and I'll send you my email address to send the stuff to.

So watch: http://pinetree.alexluyckx.com in 2010 for the new site.

This castle was built in the XI c. as the Hungarian royal castle for the defence of the salt way. And it was destroyed by an explosion in the XVIII c. Now it is called as the Drakula Castle.
Certaintly, it is a legend, but you know, I can't download my pictures - only one, the first :-(


For me it was a quite strange and frighten place. Imagine, you have to go up during 1,5 hours to the empty woody hill with the cemetory in its half-way. It was unexpected, because these ruins are like in the centre of a small town. I was alone and in the half-way I was completely afraid and wanted to go back, but it was shame to do it and pity... So I walked up and up, with a hope to meet people at least in the top. I saw people only twice. And you know, in such a place you don't know is it better or not :-). Then, in the top it was even more awful. I was alone, only with stones and "jungles"... I ran there and tried to do photos with my hands trembling... and then I really ran down... As a result I reduced near 3 kg :-) or more....

These photos from here: http://realt.org/photo/11

No descriptions, I figure if you wanna discuss something you can do it in the comments.  I left out documentaries, I kinda view them as a separate entity from films.  Dunno why.  Anyway, filled the blanks with some pics and quotes and minor thoughts here and there.

 

 

( Cut for YAY LISTS )

so I got chewed out earlier for saying that certain films were the best. I mean honestly, I still stick to my opinion. these however are my favorites (and with performances for me, at least, favorite means best.) films as a whole I believe can be of the highest quality and yet... I just do not like them. I hope this is understandable? well anyway, my favorite acting of the decade (agree? disagree?):


10. Frank Langella -- Richard Nixon (Frost/Nixon)

9. Eddie Murphy -- James "Thunder" Early (Dreamgirls)

8. Sean Penn -- Harvey Milk (Milk)

7. Daniel Day-Lewis -- Daniel Plainview (There Will Be Blood)

6. Sean Penn -- Jimmy Markum (Mystic River)


5. Leonardo DiCaprio -- Howard Hughes (The Aviator)
a biopic can provide some of the most difficult material for actors around. not only do you have to equivocate that same passion for all other roles and create this character, but you have to emanate another being. what separates DiCaprio's performance from many others was that we got to see a profound change in the character. an obvious and traceable change. maybe I am a sucker for mental breakdown (see the next entry), but the performance offered here was mesmerizing and the fact that it was based on true events makes it even more devastating.

4. Michael Shannon -- John Givings (Revolutionary Road)
what a flat-out snub at the Golden Globe Awards last year. Tom Cruise? in Tropic Thunder?! seeing as though they were the only award show who were willing to extend a lot of thanks to Revolutionary Road as a whole film, I was flabbergasted that this jaw-dropping (though concise) performance was left out. the Oscars did pick it up for their show, but Ledger's performance was not to be matched. Shannon, however, had a quality all his own. it was mentally ill. to perfection. it was a complex character, yet one that was hardly in the film at all (we learned with 2007's nomination of Ruby Dee that that did not matter.) he was chilling and honestly inspiring for an actor. I will not say he deserved the award, but perhaps any other year he did (well maybe other than the year before that too....)

3. Javier Bardem -- Anton Chigurh (No Country for Old Men)
what a decade for haunting roles. Bardem's performance as this deranged serial killer is so built up and suspenseful, the entire audience is squirming in their seats. Bardem portrays the role so well, in fact, I lost track of who I was rooting for because I only wanted to see that devilish mastermind. nightmares ensued for weeks after seeing this chilling and completely believable character murder and murder and then promptly--well, you know the ending. perhaps no other performance thus far appearing on the list have seared into my brain like this one, but with good reason. Bardem is simply brilliant.

2. Philip Seymour Hoffman -- Truman Capote (Capote)
I was largely unaware of Hoffman before this film. I think a lot of people were. sure, we had all seen him circa The Talented Mr. Ripley or Almost Famous, but when this movie was released the first thought on my mind was: how did they revive Truman Capote from death? I would definitely vouch for the statement that this performance was the best male biopic performance of the decade, though DiCaprio, Langella and Penn are hard to shake. what those three don't have is that extra spark. that little something that actors, when watching the film, will give their life to figure out. it is this charisma that Hoffman brings to his films that sets him apart (his performance in Doubt was very close to making the list, but fell short).

1. Heath Ledger -- The Joker (The Dark Knight)
perhaps this performance has become one of the most discussed performances in at least the past decade (could I even say ever... I might.) I still remember the searingly cold chills that ran up and down my arms as we watched The Joker unveil himself. every little quirk was to a tee. he was graceful in an utterly ungraceful role. Ledger's death, which was subject to some controversy, did not win him the Best Supporting Actor Oscar last year, because I remember walking out of the theater thinking to myself, wow, that man just won himself a posthumous Academy Award... hands down. it was dark. it was delirious. it was, above all, mesmerizing and frighteningly believable. maybe the film did not get the widespread recognition it deserved (referring to its not being nominated at most major award shows) but this performance is one for the ages, and, well, the decade.

Professor Richard Hayes - a notable Buddhist scholar specializing in the Buddhist logicians Dignaga and Dharmakirti - has a series of ten talks delivered at Leiden University discussing ten very interesting philosophical questions that one could ask about Buddhism. Enjoy.

Leiden Lectures

There Will Be Blood
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Mulholland Drive
All About My Mother
The Saddest Music in the World
Let the Right One In
I've Loved You So Long
8 Women
Shortbus
Waltz with Bashir
Inland Empire
Doubt
Barbarian Invasions
Lost in Translation -or- Marie Antoinette
Away from Her
Black Book
Dogville -or- Manderlay
The Gleaners & I
Lord of the Rings (The Two Towers, if I pick just one)
United 93
Raging Sun, Raging Sky

I don't know if I'd even agree with this list in an hour, let alone in a week. There are a few movies on all the lists that I haven't gotten round to seeing yet, like Moolade, Tropical Malady, Caché, or The Piano Teacher, so maybe I haven't even seen my favorite movie of the decade yet.

This is my brainstorming list, which also might double as a top one hundred list in alphabetical order.

so i totally suck and skipped some days so here they are.

Day 13- me and my friend ashley made sugar cookies all day long. it was just one of those days that we laughed at every little thing. it was really really fun. I also didn't feel like i was missing out on anything when i passed up girls drink night.

day 14- i did lots of christmas shopping. which was stressful but kind of fun. i like doing things on my own. i also saw my old friend Trevor who i hadn't seen since the summer.

day 15- my dad made me a BLT for lunch, that made me kind of excited. i also finished up all my christmas shopping. i am really excited to wrap everything and give them to people. i don't have plans yet for the night and i'm perfectly content.

By the way, Happy Gesulentday!

Sometimes the mundane can make for happiness. This morning Abby and I went for a walk in the crisp winter air. She was an angel and it was a very pleasant walk. Now she's asleep on my lap. I just wrote an email to a good friend and it was pleasant to reminisce about the friendship. I commented on a friend's journal and in the course of the comment I brought back a memory of a pleasant time I spent in his community. Seth is enjoying his main Christmas present and seeing him happy makes me happy. Nothing spectacular has happened to me today, and yet it all feels so wonderful.

Abandoned building in Kiev (Ukraine)
( Enter... )

It is on reconstruction now, after being a tuberculosis clinic. But it is go on and on and on...
To read and see more - here: http://pidhirtci.org/en



( Read more... )