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Sunday, July 29, 2018

How Google Sees Me Revisited

Not for the first time I have been amusing myself by doing a Google image search using a picture of myself and seeing what Google thinks I look like. Using a bare-chested picture of course results in a post with a high nipple count. Any excuse... While it is not the picture I used you can of course check out what my manly chest actually looks like in my profile pic.
https://www.mma-core.com/photos/Jonah_Carrion_Profile_Photo_January_21_2017/136513
While this man's body shape is quite like mine, and it's gratifying that I could look like an MMA artist, Google seems determined to give me a hairy chest I haven't got!
https://www.pof.com/viewprofile.aspx?profile_id=73488539
I can see what's happened here, it's the ink that's done it.
http://valet.ru/user/93883546/
No, not near. I wasn't wearing a hat, these guys have no ink and again there's the chest hair thing.
http://valet.ru/user/81402015/
That's quite some rug you've got going on there. But you don't look like me!
https://twitter.com/thatniggatonne
Just promise not to confuse us if you bump into us in the street.
https://plus.google.com/114037299976597100023
Still more chest hair than I'll ever have.
http://valet.ru/user/145079531/
Ink, yes, but again I didn't have a hat on and Google wants me to be Russian!
https://www.corrieresalentino.it/2013/12/antonio-santoro-ha-litalia-in-pugno-el-dynamita-e-il-nuovo-sfidante-al-titolo-nazionale-dei-superleggeri/
Fond dream...
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSywM5c8Qad63pAn0MIT4Ag
I wish, but again I just can't compete.
Obviously Google is never going to see me as I am lol.

Saturday, July 14, 2018

You Can Rely on Birmingham People

...to do the right thing. This weekend it's been Summer in Southside, which reminds me of the series of YouTube videos in which kids meet all sorts of people. In reality, if you stand on a Birmingham street for an afternoon you'll meet all they meet and more.

Sunday, July 8, 2018

I'm Being Stalked by the 4 of Wands

I am being stalked by the four of Wands - of course it isn't literally hanging out outside my house waiting for me and making phone calls in which it only heavily breathes without speaking - this is the jargon for a card which keeps reappearing in readings in a particular time.
Normally it wouldn't really be my sort of card, at least as far as it looks in the rider Waite deck. I'm obviously not really a party sort of person! This is that's all probably an example a card in which Pam's illustration may not perfectly match the meaning, and I am beginning to see why the Marseille fanatics I so critical of this deck.
One of these days I am going to memorize the titles given to the cards by the Golden Dawn if it kills me, and
I see that they called this card the Lord of Perfected Work. So it looks as if the party depicted in the card is actually a party celebrating something finished or brought completion in some way.
Another way of understanding tarot cards is a comparison between different decks, and strangely pam perfectly depicts Etteilla's meaning for this card rather than that of the golden dawn: Upright or reversed, prosperity and society are pretty much what she is describing. Of course it is possible that she is intending to unite the two meanings, depicting a celebration of something completed, but unless you know the Golden Dawn's title for this card you would not be able to get it from the illustration, and it is strange that for a deck which supposedly draws so much on the Golden Dawn tradition it's meaning is not that close.
So what have I completed? My idiot colleague at work has left, so that's good, but in typical Hound Style it has revealed a number of other things which have never been dealt with by management and which reinforce my impression that for that and a few other reasons it is time to move on. I am in fact applying for other jobs as I have written, and perhaps the Work completed title signifies that it it's time to move on rather than celebrate. This is also not the end of the work really, card is only number three of the suit so it isn't really the end but maybe perhaps a comma.
Yet another way of understanding the cards is one which is genuinely traditional and certainly predates the golden dawn, also I am not completely sure whether it would also predate Etteilla also it is certainly French. I have written about it before here and it is a way of understanding the minor cards as manifestations of the relevance major card in their suit. So this card for example manifests the energy of the emperor (order, stability, organisation) in the areas of Life detected in Wands (actions, decisions, creativity). It is interesting that this way of understanding gives a much more subtle interpretation to the card, inviting planning, clear thinking, and decisive actions. This interpretation would also be supported by the astrological corresponces in which the Emperor, and the 2, 3, and 4 of Wands are all assigned to Aries. Which is very me, because I am an Aries!
Ok, I get the message. Now will you stop stalking me please?

Sunday, July 1, 2018

Spirit of Place: Digbeth Art Gallery Revisited

I girded my loins for an explore today. The art you see in this post is further out than the art I've posted here before, beyond the Custard Factory. This is a completely personal and idiosyncratic choice, simply because nothing really caught my eye closer to the City Centre. The pictures are completely unedited and of course this is to allow a sense of placement and not the result of laziness. My favorite is the one with Chinese script.










Finally a scene which amused me. I hope *that* isn't how they get their spares!