Toothbrush Wars, DICT Client, Labour Day, Catharism in Sci Fi

Toothbrush Wars, Day 3:

After this Longest Day, I'd like to report that I have taken the Beach. I mean the toothbrush. After days of searching, I finally located that bastard. The cat must have put it there on purpose for taking two weeks' vacation. But no worries, with some R&R things will be okay.

On a different note, if you haven't yet obtained a dictionary client, your ship is in. I highly recommend the fabulous DICT Client from David Caldwell's Porkrind-Dot-Org. The non-Mac version is available at the DICT Development Group.

There are bilingual dictionaries available from the DICT Development Group, but I haven't figured out how to port them into Porkrind's DICT Client for OS X. Mostly because I haven't tried, so I may report in tomorrow.

On yet another computer note, if anyone can tell me how to add a commentary section so people can make fun of my posts, please let me know. Otherwise it may be some time before I can get it online: I'm lazy and stupid, as I may have mentioned before.

Right now I'm annoyed at the tv options. I like to watch tv at night & there ain't nothing on. I did get to see Dead Like Me, which is good, but there is nothing else on. Probably because other people have social lives and it is Saturday; also it is Labour Day Weekend, for whatever that means. National fucking holiday, innit? Only in America, where we think wealth equates to value as a person and the good life means making the most money.

Oy, lissen to me. What a marroon.

Instead, I jacked up the stereo - ours is in the living room and hitched up to the television - and put on Cowboy Bebop: Heavy Metal Queen. That is making things a little nicer, as is the presence of another, um, whatcha call it? Ok, a sentient being includes the cat and the dog, but what do you call a person? A speaker?

Not that I don't love Spanky the Wonder Muffin, but hey. Someone who can speak is different, right?

Been rereading the Aleutian series by Gwyneth Jones. I spoke to her once over email about the one I'm rereading, Phoenix Café� (the third book), because it fascinated me; I highly recommend it. Anyway, I was interested in the references to the Cathars, a medieval 'heresy' that preceded Protestantism but which matches many fundamental arguments of the Protestant movement. In the 10-12th CE, it flourished in Languedoc - that's southern France, where they speak the langue d'oc, Proven�çale - and nothern Italy, and was subject to one of the early Crusades. That is how it was wiped out.

Anyway, in PC one of the characters, Agathe Uwilingiyimane, is referred to as a Perfect; she allegedly does not engage in any sexual activity, including the ever-popular 'autoerotic exhilaration' sort. This is a Catharist term and, as far as I know, ONLY a Catharist one. In the terms of the book, there are no real Cathars; it is set in our future after long occupation and de facto rule by hermaphroditic aliens. (Stick with me, here.) Therefore, in the book's setting, all politics are Gender Politics; Traditionalist (Male) and Reformer (Female) are political parties that no longer correspond to the gender & sex divisions they once did. Human beings just aren't sexed like they used to be; hundreds of years of genetic engineering has created an H. sapiens whose males and females aren't much distinguishable even when naked. There are even a third group, called the Half-Caste, whose members somatically mimic the aliens by being genetically engineered as embryos and whose culture mimics alien culture - as humans understand it, anyway.

It's a great ride and an interesting series. Honestly, I started with this third book; while some of the details were confusing, I enjoyed number three better than number one. I can't really remember number two because it's been a long time. Och. Library time - that is, if I've got the ducats to pay the overdue fines I've saved up. Och indeed.

Back to the grindstone. I mean futon. (I forgot I was a shiftless, jobless bum for a minute there.)