Laura Seabrook's Ramblings

The whole first season of Hellsing finally came in at the library, and I've started watching it today. Very nice - everything I was expecting although a little cheesy too. The British accents are very odd, and one scene of Picadilly Circus has neon sign for "Loster's" beer!

I love it.

Anyway, Kevin was commenting about Neko and how it was a big thing in Japan. The most I'm familiar with is the cat's ears and tails I see on avatars in Second Life. I did a Google search and came up with all sorts of stuff.

The thing that first caught my eye was Neko for Windows - a program that adds a cute cat (or others) to your desktop which runs around chasing (or avoiding) your mouse cursor. Then there's It's Neko where you can do this on a web page. I was surprised however that Neko is also a programming language, though exactly what advantages it has over other languages remains to be seen. 

I was also surprised to discover it was a (Japanese?) gay slang referring to the femme partner in a lesbian couple. Mostly though it seems to be a Maneki Neko - one of those cat sculptures I often see in various restaurants (sometimes  one arm moves), which seems to have origins in Shinto. I always wondered what those were.

Seems the most popular meaning is an abbreviation of Nekomusume or "Cat Girl". That explains that avatars in Second Life, as this is undoubtedly what they're based on.

Mind you, I also found (or re-found, since I'd come across it via Pixia) the J-List. All sorts of stuff on this (as per below)!!!

I  heard about this on TripleJ yesterday. From The Telegraph:

The parents of a New Zealand girl named Talula Does the Hula From Hawaii have been ordered to change her name because it risks making her the target of abuse and ridicule. 

A judge ruled that the nine-year-old girl, who is the subject of a custody fight, should be placed in the guardianship of the court until she is renamed.

A lawyer acting for the girl claimed she was so embarrassed by her name that she had kept it from her friends, insisting she should be known as "K" instead. She also feared that if it became public she would be mocked and teased.

The lawyer claimed the girl fully understood the absurdity of her name, unlike her parents who had not considered the implications when they named her.

Justice Robert Murfitt said the name clearly presented a social hurdle for the child.

"It makes a fool of the child and sets her up with a social disability and handicap," he said.

He also voiced concern over other names given to New Zealand children, such as Violence, Midnight Chardonnay and Number 16 Bus Shelter.

A set of twins was named Benson and Hedges, after the cigarette brand and some children had been named after six-cylinder Ford cars. There has ever been a case of a child being named after the entire All Blacks side.

"Recently, for the first time in my experience as a Family Court judge, the name of a child described in text language has emerged," Mr Murfitt said.

In that case, a girl was named O.crnia, but in negotiations with the mother over a parenting order, the name was adjusted to Oceania.

New Zealand officials said they did have the power to block outlandish names.

Brian Clarke, the registrar general of Births, Deaths and Marriages, told the New Zealand Herald that the law did not allow names that would cause offence to a reasonable person, that are more than 100 characters or that include titles, military ranks, punctuation or numerals.

Names rejected by the office include Fish and Chips, Yeah Detroit, Stallion, Twisty Poi, Keenan Got Lucy and Sex Fruit.

Mr Clarke said officials attempted talk to parents who proposed unusual names and convince them about the potential for embarrassment.

"Often when we explain the situation to parents we can agree on an acceptable name to register," he told the paper.

Australia is no stranger to silly names either. I've heard of people called "Crikey Moses", "Rainbow Gumleaf" and "Faith Hope Charity Savage".

One of the things about the Matrix is the multiple failed attempts to expand and extend it, which when mixed with the enormous expectations of a rabid fan base, led to humoungous disappointment. However, much interesting, good, and weird stuff also came out of the Matrix.

I've just been having a look at The Matrix online. This seems to be an MMO but you have to buy a copy of the game ($19.95) first before you can play it. It was uncertain from the website if it costs money to play, but it undoubtedly does. After playing Second Life I have to say the graphics look a bit, um, dated?

At right is a screenshot from the site which shows two fashion victims having it out once and for all. The youtube video The Matrix Online 2.0 probably gives a slightly better idea of what it's all about, though I suspect that after a while things would get very repetitive. Maybe the The Matrix Online - Neo Vs Smith Parody is more like how things are. If I were to play this game, I'd want to be an agent and kick the shit out of the humans!

One of the better free merchandising spin-offs from the first film are the Matrix Comics which you can still read on-line (or buy in paper versions). These are all part of the What is the Matrix site and I find it interesting that, after five years, the site is still there.

Something I didn't expect was Matrixism - the path of the one(赤)! Yep, it's a religion based on the films. Hard to say whether is this is serious or not. The religion-wiki entry lists its religious laws as including "The abrogation of the use of the human image in advertising, the legalization of file sharing, the abrogation of pornography, the legalization of same-sex marriage, the abrogation of professional sports and the legalization of both polygyny and polyandry". Not that I'm opposed to any of that, but it seems an odd mix. In any case they have their own website for you to check out. I wonder what would happen if they met the Church of the Jedi?

And while we're on religion, that religion-wiki has some odd entries. I typed 'jedi' into the search to find the above. I didn't - instead you'll find a link to the GENTA page. Have fun working out what it's all about.

And finally, there is The Meatrix!

OK, two things connected to Trek:

• Britain's top judges are to get a new outfit, doing away with their traditional wigs and introducing colour-coded robes which one critic likened to costumes from the hit sci-fi series Star Trek (actually, I think they look more like something from Star Gate).
  
• William Shatner hated bedding Star Trek fans - at least that's what he says!

What next (expects a barrage of weird links).

It's indicative of the IMDB that their message boards for just released film are crazy with activity. The message board for Cloverfield is no exception. I posted a question on it and in less than 30 seconds I had 5 replies. This is even more intense than the feeding frenzy that happened at the Matrix Explained Forums before the last film in that trilogy was released.

That was back in 2004, but apparently things haven't changed much since then. It seems that Cloverfield had a "viral marketing" campaign, as revealed in this thread.

Most interesting things to come out of this for me, are the Biology of B-Movie Monsters site, and the Slusho! site (don't take my word for it, go take a look), as per this advert for their product:

According to a source on one my pagan mailing lists (who was quoting a 'Mayan timetable', whatever that is) "an
unprecedented surge of positive energy that hit our planet in the wee
hours of December 31, 2007, and gave us all a little 'jump start'".

I felt anything but positive just then, how about you? The following is allegedly "the moment this wave hit the earth from a space monitoring site": 

Hmmmm...

Back in 2001/2002 I had friends down in Gosford and I went with them to look at the "Gosford Hieroglyphics". These were supposedly Egyptian Hieroglyphs on the side of a a rock. Despite the fact that Nisaba said that she'd been there before and seen them, we couldn't locate the glyphs, despite at least an hour and a half's rambling.

I went back twice more, once with my dog Pegasus, but could not locate anything. Of course it would have helped if I'd really known what I was looking for. I had expected something painted, but in fact the glyphs were carved. The last time I looked for these, it was obvious that the whole area was being marked out for suburban development. Nonetheless, Pegasus and I had a lot of fun walking down there.

And there the matter ended until last week when I read the April 2007 edition of Fortean Times about possible Egyptian colonies and contact in the Kimberleys and the east coast of Australia (especially around Gympie, where there is something called The Gympie Pyramid). The article (damn, I don't have the library copy of that issue out right now) suggested that ancient Egyptians may have sent exploring/trading missions to these parts, in search of exotic trading items such as Eucalyptus Oil (and supposedly traces of which have been found in Egyptian tombs), and maintained a presence here for a number of years! That renewed my interest.

Uru

Then, on Friday I came across a copy of URU-The Lost Civilisation of Australia sitting in the History section of Mayfield library! This is a self published book by Rex and Heather Gilroy. It presents the idea and supporting evidence (such as it is) that there was a megalithic Australian civilisation known as URU; that it had a written language; built stone structures similar to stone circles and temples found in Europe (including pyramids); and had contact with Egyptian and Sumerian civilisations. Mind you, they also claim (with a straight face) discovery of fossilised footprints that if accurate, would support the idea of "hominids of immense stature" populating Australia 50,000 years ago, a "genetically mutated giant form of an Homo erectus population".

Most of the "evidence" though, seems to be photos of rocks and stones with chalk marks on them (see right). There are pages of photos of these, where (at least to me) the designs highlighted in chalk seem an arbitrary - if they hadn't drawn on the things you'd have never have recognised anything there at all! The photos showing the Uru scripts are odd too.

The author claims to have deciphered and translated the language (including a guide to pronunciation, no less) which appears to be a cross between Ogham and Proto-Phonetician (his explanation for this is that the Uruians colonised the rest of the world). But, I can't find anywhere in the book an explanation of how he did this. We are presented with finished translations like "On this land the Sun-God's temple has been built, protected by I-No, who protects the Sun, Nim. He holds the Sun, the serpent,. All give praise to the God. Gather here, behold the Sun on the land of the Earth Mother Nif,  protected by Ga-na who protects the gods . Here the light of Uru shines. Celebrated here the festival of the gods."

Um, OK. Pretty complete translation for research that seems to have no point of comparison, or "Rosetta Stone" to get equivalents. There are also photos of "altars", "stone circles", "statues" and also (finally), the Gosford Hieroglyphics. All but the last suffer from being marginal in perception.

To an un-enlightened or un-primed browser, most of the photos seem to be of simulacra - natural features of juxtapositions that because of human psychology, suggest faces and other cultural artefacts. We as humans tend to see such things, because it's hard wired into us - go out looking for faces in the bush, and you'll find them. I was once walking Pegasus along a power line track, and saw in the rise of the hill a huge earthen face staring at me! You could only see it from one angle, and I accepted it as as a visual gift from the "spirit of place". 

Likewise, go out looking for lost languages and you might find those too, even if they not really there!.

The Glyphs

Anyway, having finally seen photos of the Gosford Glyphs, I decided to see what was on the web about them. First, I found this...

...looks pretty real doesn;t it? And then I found Forgeries, Hoaxes and Curiosities with a section on them. It reprints an article from Archaeological Diggings that seems to debunk them as crude forgeries. Notably it says:

Neil Martin himself found the man responsible. "In 1984 1 was in the area helping to put out a fire", he told me. "As I came around the base of the hill, I could hear a noise like someone chipping stone. I walked over to the cleft and found an old Yugoslavian man, chipping the stone with a Sidchrome cold chisel. Because this was national park property, I confiscated the chisel and the man left. Because he was mentally handicapped, we took no further action, but I later gave the chisel to the local historical society. We never saw the old man again."

...and...

...the carvings are part of genre of art and architectural styles triggered by the archaeological discoveries in Egypt in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.... ...Indeed, the "Tutmania" continues unabated today. It is no surprise then to find carvings of this nature in the rock and they have a valid place in Australian culture.

So, the glyphs are real, but most likely fakes. Neato stuff in either case, because I have a keen interest in Forteana, which is not so much a belief in strange stuff, but the study of the weird, and of the weird things that folk believe. I'm fascinated by how people get absorbed by such stuff. If you look at Rex & Heather Gilroys Mysterious Australasia,  Egyptian Hieroglyphics in OZtralia, and a lot of other sites, you can see this in action.

Which is not to say that Australia wasn't visited by ancient Egyptians at some point, but I'd want to see better evidence than any of this!