So … there I was.

Watching Terry Prachett’s Hogfather on the TeeVee, and just as Susan (Death’s Granddaughter) and Bilious (The God of Hangovers) head off on Binky (Death’s horse) …

… the picture went right down the khazi.

ARRGGHH!

Something DirectTeeVee neglects to mention in their ads is that if you have heavy cloud-cover, the signal tends to, shall we say — break up — on it’s way to your dish.

Since it is, as I type, snowing, it’s safe to say that we’ve got heavy cloud-cover.

muttermuttersonsamutterbloodymuttermutter

Great. Just great. And I was so enjoying that movie, too.

A quick run around the Intarwebz reveals that a Hogfather DVD is available. In England. In the PAL/SECAM format.

Since American TeeVees run on the NTSC format, this doesn’t perzackly help me any.

Bugger ’em all.

*sigh*

LawDog

Apparently some scum-sucking invertebrate decided to hack the Skywritings blog.

Scully, the author over there, decided to go ahead and shut down, rather than go to the effort of retrieving all of her prose and poetry that was cacked.

This got me to thinking — usually a Bad Thing.

I don’t have any of this saved, except betwixt Ye Olde Ears. Methinks I might ought to do something about that.

Bearing in mind that my computer-ical and internet-ish knowledge compares favourably to that of a Neandertal, anyone got any advice for saving this stuff?

Bear in mind, if you please, that any instruction needs to be along the lines of:

“1)Offer box of KFC Crispy to Magic Box Elves.

2)Mash yellow button.

3)Sit on hands until pretty blinking lights stop.”

LawDog

ukecane
“Do you know about any good recorded reading (or should I say storytelling?) of Beowulf? If so, could you point me to the source?”

karla (threadbndr):
“I’m like Uke – any source for an audio book reading done right?”

Ky Person:
“I’d love to hear Beowulf read by someone who knows what he’s doing.”

All righty, then.

I’m kind of hesitant to suggest this — for a number of reasons. The gentleman reciting Beowulf is doing so in the original language.

To me, being familiar with the story, this is fantastic. I am afraid, though, that folks who aren’t familiar with Beowulf are going to hear a language they don’t quite understand, and will give up watching and listening — maybe to give up on the story altogether. Which would be a tragedy.

The DVD has an English subtitle option, however, so all may not be lost.

This version of the saga ends too soon. It finishes after the defeat of Grendel’s mother — which, to be fair, is the popular ending. To the best of my knowledge, the gentleman has not done a complete telling of the tale — something I hope he chooses to attend to in the future.

Anyhoo.

The gentleman’s name is Benjamin Bagby, and he recites Beowulf the way it was meant to be done — in Old English, with proper flair, and accompanied by a harp when required.

Here is the opening of the saga:

Mr. Bagby’s rendition of Beowulf is available from his web-site, or from popular on-line sellers.

I suggest viewing the DVD at night, with the lights off or down low for proper effect.

LawDog

The current Internet story of the day involves Joe Horn.

For those Gentle Readers who may be living under a staircase somewhere, Mr. Horn is the South Texas gentleman who discovered two men breaking into his neighbors house.

He then dialled 911 and had a conversation with the dispatcher in which he told the dispatcher some stuff he probably shouldn’t have, before going outside and killing both men.

Now, I’m not going to get into whether Mr. Horn was justified or not in taking those men’s lives — this is Texas, and a Grand Jury of twelve good men and true will determine if Mr. Horn was justified or not.

No, what I am interested in is that during his conversation with Mr. Horn, the dispatcher told Mr. Horn that killing those men “wasn’t worth it”.

Some folks on the Internet have a bit of a problem with that. There’s some thought that this wasn’t the dispatchers business.

You know, near as I can tell the only person who has a right to say if it was the dispatchers business to beg Mr. Horn not to go outside … is Mr. Horn.

Mr. Horn’s lawyer and his family state that he “is crushed”. The New Black Panther Party and the Millions More Movement are protesting outside of his house. Mr Horn’s face is on the TeeVee and in newspapers around the world, where people Mr. Horn doesn’t know — and will never meet — are calling Mr. Horn a murderer and demanding his arrest.

The local Houston paper reports that their poll finds that 60% of their readers feel Mr. Horn was justified in his killing of the two men.

Sounds good, yes?

60% means that 40% think Mr. Horn wasn’t justified.

Two out of every five people he meets think that he is a murderer — and that’s a lot of people. That amount of ill-will can weigh on a man’s mind.

Killing another human being is the ultimate taboo. To take the life of some mother’s son leaves a stain — no matter how small — on your soul.

And everyone — no matter how foul a critter — was, at some time, some mothers baby. Don’t think that this seemingly irrelevant fact won’t jump up and steal your breath in the long hours spent wrestling with your conscience afterwards.

The guilt and self-doubt that can plague a man for even the most justified of killings can be overwhelming.

It is possible — even likely — that a man who has been forced to take a life in the most justified of circumstances; circumstances such that no one can find fault in his decision — it is possible for that man to be wracked by guilt and self-doubt regarding his actions; it is possible for him to spend the darkest hours of the nights torturing his soul with ‘What I Could Have Done Differently’ questions.

Unfortunately for Mr. Horn, his shooting wasn’t so clean. There is some doubt as to his justification; nearly half the people who have heard of this event are finding fault and are naming him ‘murderer’.

No matter how stoic you are, each whisper of ‘murderer’ will lodge itself in your psyche.

Mr. Horn is going to be bombarded with the grief of the dead men’s loved ones. False or not, that grief and those tears are all over the TeeVee, and false or not, each tear becomes a burden, if only a tiny one.

Some of the people who believe that Mr. Horn wasn’t justified in his actions are going to uncork their vitriol and their loathing for Mr. Horn through phone calls, speech, and the printed word.

His own conscience is liable to replay the faces of those dead men at three in the morning.

Seeing as how these men were minorities, the powerful minority lobbies and national civil rights organizations will probably supply the funding and the lawyers for any resulting Federal lawsuit.

Against these lobbies and these organizations, Mr. Horn will have … his retirement? Donations from family, friends and strangers?

*sigh*

Whether Mr. Horn was justified in his actions, or not, will be decided by a Grand Jury.

Whether the dispatcher was justified in advising Mr. Horn not to proceed — is up to Mr. Horn.

And I think his answer today, or next month, or next year might be different than his answer on that fateful day.

LawDog

A week or so ago, I linked to a Michael Yon picture and short article about a Christian church in Baghdad.

Today, Michael posts a follow-up to that story.

Shlemon Warduni, an auxiliary bishop for the Catholic Diocese, performed the first Mass held at that church since it was shut down.

From the article:
Today, Muslims mostly filled the front pews of St John’s. Muslims who want their Christian friends and neighbors to come home. The Christians who might see these photos likely will recognize their friends here. The Muslims in this neighborhood worry that other people will take the homes of their Christian neighbors, and that the Christians will never come back. And so they came to St John’s today in force, and they showed their faces, and they said, “Come back to Iraq. Come home.” They wanted the cameras to catch it. They wanted to spread the word: Come home. Muslims keep telling me to get it on the news. “Tell the Christians to come home to their country Iraq.”

Come home.

Are there any two words in any language that hold more hope, more comfort, than ‘come home’?

LawDog

By way of La Femme, I am delighted to discover a quiz which purports to inform you as to which Discworld character you most resemble.

Various Gentle Readers have made statements to this effect regarding your Humble Scribe, so I felt it my duty to confirm or deny certain suspicions:

Which Discworld Character are you like (with pics) created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Commander Samuel Vimes You are Samuel Vimes! Captain of Ankh-Morpork’s city Watch! You are a knight, married to the very wealthy, noble lady Sybil Ramkin. You often walk the streets at night, and are able to tell where you are by the feel of the cobbles under your boots. You always do what is right – that is, what needs to be done – to keep the city safe, even when it seems bad. Commander Samuel Vimes 69% Esmerelda (Granny) Weatherwax 50% Carrot Ironfounderson 50% Death 44% Greebo 44% Lord Havelock Vetinari 38% Gytha (Nanny) Ogg 38% The Librarian 38% Cohen The Barbarian 38% Rincewind 31%

Huh. I always figured myself for Fred Colon, actually.

LawDog

This damned song has been stuck in my head for three days. I heard a short clip of the violins coming from the TeeVee room, and it was ear-worm time.

I’ve been chasing people around the office, humming the violin part and trying to find the name of the tune.

And, maybe I was getting a little intense … but it was driving me nuts.

Anyhoo, this evening, after three hours of intense Tafiti-fu, I found it.

Lux Æterna, by Clint Mansell.

Whew.

LawDog

The Nowell Codex is a manuscript of old Britannia dating from the first millennium A.D. — before the Norman invasion and conquest of England in 1066.

This manuscript contains several pieces: a telling of the life of Saint Christopher; a description of foreign lands and even more foreign animals; a copy of a letter from Alexander to Aristotle; and a poetic translation of the Book of Judith.

What makes it famous is an untitled epic poem from the 8th century which tells the story of a Geatish hero and his slaying of a monster, the mother of the monster and a dragon.

This epic saga is, of course, the story of Beowulf.

Beowulf was originally strictly an oral story, probably told to the sound of harp music. Read from paper, the story of Beowulf is odd and confusing — most people don’t finish the saga.

Recited out loud, by someone who is not only familiar and fond of the story, but well-versed in the tricks of the story-tellers art, Beowulf is thrilling, mournful, haunting, gripping and everything in-between.

I see that Hollywood has taken another hack at this ancient saga. Half of me really, really wants to go see this movie.

The other half of me is terrified that Hollywood is going to turn one of the earliest and finest examples of Western literature into unwatchable screaming drek.

*sigh*

I’m probably going to go see it, but I swear I’m going to be packing a horsewhip and a trout. If that same pompous, illiterate, hack poseur Philistine shows up and kvetches about the “simplistic plot”, “lack of personal growth” or even mentions the words “interpersonal dynamics of the main characters” during this movie like he did for ‘Troy’, I’m going to beat him to death right there in the peanut gallery.

LawDog