Oh Thor!!!! am I glad to be a Viking Woman!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(Dreamily)I just love this show and this second season is even better than the first. Ah yes I should have been a Saxon and lived in those lovely woods with me own Hood. I have the first series DVD but now I hear its coming out on blu-Ray soon so I will have to get it. It is a shame but I have this addiction to blu-ray and even though I already have the movies that keep coming out newly on blu-ray in the other format I just can't help buying them again in blu-ray. No one but me seems to be able to tell the difference. Blu-ray is awesome. I wish they would hurry up with the 13th Warrior in that format!

Okay so my stars and stripes is certified to be made in the U.S. Okay good I wouldn't want it made in China(no offense to the Chinese (although FREE TIBET) but someone needs to draw a line somewhere). However a closer look at the package tells a couple pieces were actually made elsewhere and the whole thing was entirely assembled elsewhere. The elsewhere is not in the USA BTW. Seems it is cheaper to make the pieces of stuff here and assemble them all elsewhere.
Now for my packet of Alaskan Salmon. The Salmon does come from Alaskan waters but apparently it was also assembled elsewhere. Again it's cheaper that way. Could it be that we Americans are finally realizing we have moved into some altered universe? Or have I lost my mind completely?
Perhaps its the material I read. I read this in "Consumer Reports" March 2008 issue. Went to check it out myself and sure enough. It's right there on the packages. Made in America but assembled somewhere else. I think I'd rather go back to the Viking days. Hey at least we knew where the things we looted were made and manufactured.

Think in ways you never thought before
If the phone rings, think of it as carrying a message
Larger than any you have ever heard,
Vaster than a hundred lines of Yeats.

Think that someone may bring a bear to your door,
Maybe wounded and deranged; or think that a moose
Has risen out of the lake and he is carrying on his antlers
A child of your own whom you've never seen.

When someone knocks on the door, think that he's about
To give you somthing large: tell you your forgiven,
Or that it's not necessary to work all the time, or that it's
Been decided that if you lie down no one will die.


By Robert Bly

I have been in telly heaven this past week with the season finales of Dr Who and Torchwood playing on BBC America. Hey I am even getting an Anglo accent from watching the channel so much Next weekend is the new season of Robin Hood and I can't wait. This past weekend it was almost the end of the world and then there's the time space rift over Cardiff Wales. Am I afraid of the world ending? Nope not with Dr Who and Martha Jones at the controls. Am I worried that more aliens will land in Cardiff and start destroying humankind? Nope not with Captain Jack and Torchwood Celts in charge. Do I have a life? Yes next weekend its going to be in 1100's England hanging out with those sexy Saxons! LOL

Viking raids gave Norsemen a reputation in medieval Europe as bloodthirsty marauders. Recent archaeological finds show they may also have been vain - caring as much for the brilliance of their teeth as the bite of their swords. A study of skeletal remains from 1,000-year-old burial sites in southern Sweden suggests some Norsemen used iron files to carve grooves into their teeth, probably to insert colourful decorations, anthropologist Caroline Arcini said. She believes the grooves, which she found in the teeth of 10 per cent of male skeletons but none of the women, were either pure decoration or meant to show affiliation to a social class or trade group. Tooth filing was widespread among Indian tribes in America at the time, but Arcini's discovery is the first indication it was also used among medieval Europeans. Although researchers believe the Vikings were the first Europeans to reach America in the 11th century, Arcini said her discoveries don't necessarily mean the two cultures exchanged ideas on dentistry. "It is probably just a coincidence," she said. "Things pop up in different places in the world without there necessarily having been any contact." The Vikings entered recorded history in the late eighth century, when they set out in their long ships to raid the coasts of northern Europe. Starting out as minor expeditions by adventurous chieftains, the raids eventually escalated into full-scale invasions in England and northern France led by Norwegian and Danish kings and earls. Swedish Vikings headed east, crossing the Baltic Sea and sailing up the rivers of Russia and reaching as far as Constantinople. Arcini's study, first published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, found horizontal grooves across the upper front teeth of 24 men in 557 skeletal remains of men and women at four grave sites. The grooves, often in pairs or triplets, were too carefully made to be the result of chance, she said. Arcini, who works for the Swedish National Heritage Board, said it was unclear what colours were used to fill the grooves, but it was likely black or red. "I think it was rather pretty," she said. "What they had in common was that they had to laugh pretty hard" for the teeth to be visible because the grooves were quite high up. Arcini hopes further studies will reveal where the practice arose and how it spread. from an Associated Press article in CTV.ca

"One ought not to believe anything, save that which can be proven by nature and the force of reason." - Frederick II, German King and Holy Roman Emperor 1235 AD"

Well Elgiva's said everything I wanted to say only more eloquently than I can. My tongue gets so tied when I become passionate. Or insane which I am probably both. Everyone already knows I am a nutcase, I am not exactly quiet about it. Muhhahahaha.
On a more sane note, I would like to see the neighborhoods
developed more and more frequented. Egliva's done a wonderful/excellent job on Colchester. I would like to see more of this, more history, more academics .and also in a roleplaying in academic character sort of way. Although I have been guilty of not playing by the archeaological evidence too. The festivals tends to get off base of history and the like and I understand that too but lets face it this place needs livening up to mae it more real and game at the same time. I have barely any visitors to the properties I am developing and I kind of feel like it is becoming not worth it because I have put a lot of my own research and writing into them. Am I tooting my horn a but much....yes another flaw of mine.
Now that I have more than one persona things are picking up but I am still afraid I will soon grow as bored as I have with Germania. As much as the scribes and a few of us patrons and citizens try to keep things going there is still so much of a lull and it has nothing to do with festivals really. Festivals last a few days then we are back to boredom. With only a few towing the line and trying to keep things active. There must be a solution but I do not know what that is at this time so can offer no explanation or suggestions. I guess I am just one of those chronic complainers but I am thinking about things like solutions and stuff. It just takes my brain a while to warm up. It's an Icelander thing LOL Anyway great journal Elgiva! I still love this place too I just want to help make it even better. I appreciate all the scribes and all others have done to help here too and am not blaming them for this but I think it would be nice if we all helped them a bit more than we do they have quite a load on their shoulders. So lets all try to get things a together here a bit more. O snap there I go rambling again and having no idea what I just said :o I only wnted to say everyone should tae a read of Elgiva's journal cuz I think she hit the nail on the head!

Yes....I was watching the previews to the second season of BBC's Robin Hood series. It doesn't show here in America until April. The season has finished in Britian so then we will be allowed to see it. BBC America is my favorite in that it has the television shows I love. Torchwood, Robin Hood, Top Gear, and Dr Who.
Torchwood's second season just started showing here at the end of January and it has me wishing I could live in Cardiff Wales just so I can be near the space time rift that is over the city and the reason why Torchwood is there. LOL I'm a bit over the edge eh?

When death comes

like a hungry bear in autumn;

when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me and snaps the purse shut;

when death comes

like the measle-pox;

when death comes

like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:

what it is going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything

as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,

and I look upon time as no more than an idea,

and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common

as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,

ending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something

precious to the earth.

When it is over, I want to say: all my life

I was a bride to amazement.

I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over I don't want to wonder

if I have made of my life something particular and real.

I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened, or

full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

----Mary Oliver------