Another weekend draws to a close.

Just got off the phone with Jaeger, who sounds like he is having a ball at Comdex. billg gave a keynote, which Jaeger said was pretty cool.

<laugh if you want>
And even now, at this very moment, the Empire is attempting to draw one of our own over to the Dark Side of the Source. Palpatine laughs his whispy laugh, as Darth Ballmer deploys the booth bunnies in an effort to distract the rebels from their sacred mission.
</laugh if you want>

Heehee. Err... Comdex... Mmmmmm.... Comdex....

Um... What was I going to come back and ramble about anyway? The reading I've been doing lately? Hmmm... I really should get a booklog interface online. For that matter, it would be nice to get the movielog entry interface back to a working state. Hmmm... Maybe one of these days, I ought to take a week vacation from work just to get something of substance done on my web page code. It's a thought anyway.

Oh, now I remember another thing. This morning, or... this afternoon, or whenever it was, I reproduced my X problem of yesterday. When I tried grabbing the new kernel (2.4 test10), compiled it, and rebooted, same behavior. Tried changing options, taking out all the fancy video crap. Same difference.

Went back to 2.2.17, and it worked fine. It didn't seem to matter what options I chose, but whenever I used 2.4, the damn thing blew up in my face. Must be something fundamentally incompatible with the new packages. So right now, I'm back on 2.2. Nuts.

At times like this, bouncing's recent talk about moving over to Slackware actually makes quite a bit of sense. The true DIY distro. No package clobberings. You want something upgraded, you do it all yourself. (And in the process, gain a whole lot more knowledge about the system than you probably would otherwise.) It's a thought, anyway.

But no, I don't plan to switch Argo over right now. I've done enough of that lately. I might try it in the spare unallocated, currently unpartitioned area which I left blank for just such purposes. But not immediately.

[Bitscape extinguishes all but the Flame of Eternal Spirit, the Flame of Meditation, and the TriFlame of Protection.]

Reading lately. Just for the fun of it, I thought I'd go through all the spiritual books I've obtained and have been reading lately. Talk a little about my progress, what I've been learning, and bits of summary. And of course, ramble a bit. :)

• The Truth About Witchcraft Today. by Scott Cunningham. I actually just finished this one last night. Good reading.

  The book's primary focus is to provide information about just what folk magic and Wicca are, and what they are not. A good deal of time is spent disspelling myths and lies which have been propogated about magic and the religion of Wicca. Not about devil worship or any other such parody of Christian faith.

  So, what is magic, and what is Wicca? According to Cunningham's definition, folk magic is simply the projection of personal power, as well as that of natural objects, to bring about needed change. Has been used since the dawn of humanity in all parts of the world (until forceful supression by organized religion, the primary one of which I will leave unnamed here, forced it to go underground in many sectors for fear of physical and/or social reprisal). Folk magicians do not "believe" in the effectiveness of their magic any more than physicists "believe" in the law of gravity. From their own observations, they know it to be. (This distinction sounded strikingly reminiscent of something I heard from another source (although I think it was via private email, not web). Hmmm...)

  The religion of Wicca is a religion of Nature. Wiccans generally worship two primary deities. (I say "generally" because there is no centralized Wiccan authority. Wiccans are widely scattered, there is no one official doctrine, and many variations in rituals exist. Most covens do have these things in common, however.) They worship the God and the Goddess. Most Wiccans revere each deity equally. Some emphasize the Goddess more because they feel the need to balance out the overwhelmingly male-dominated mythos of other major religions. The God is generally represented by the sun, the Goddess by the moon.

  Wiccans rituals are heavily based upon the cycles of nature. The major rituals which are almost universally recognized are Sabbats (solar festivals; 8 per year; related to old European hunting and harvesting times; God-oriented), and Esbats (full moon; 13 per year; Goddess-oriented). During these they may gather (or perform them alone), cast the circle, put forth offerings, burn incense, say poetic words, worship the God/Goddess, and optionally perform magic.

  .... Holy cow, I meant to do a brief summary, and I'm going on and on. Definitely need to get that booklog engine up and running. Anyway, this book gives a good overview of what magic and Wicca do and do not involve. A good book for those who simply want to be informed without necessarily delving into these things themselves. (A number of references and suggested readings are offered at the end for those who are interested in getting into it for themselves.)

• Wicca. A Guide for the Solitary Practicioner. This one is also by Scott Cunningham.

  To be honest, I bought this one a while back, and haven't even gotten through the intro. I want to learn more. There just aren't enough hours in the day. It's in my queue.

• When, Why ...If. by Robin Wood.

  As I found out through experience, this one is self-published, so it is unlikely to be found at most retailers. (power to the people through the web! down with the middleman, yeah! oh, sorry. didn't mean to go off on a tangent. ;) Read this one cover to cover a week ago. I plan to go back through it and do the exercises the second time around. (That's the method suggested by the author, and my mentor also concurred.)

  This book, while written from a Wiccan perspective, is more of a general work on the concept of ethics. In fact, it purports itself as a manual with which each reader can create their own system of ethics, tailored to the individual.

  An [as long as] it harm none, do what ye will. The Wiccan rede. This book explores beyond this basic idea, into the ideals of honesty (hmmm... think I had a resolution about that once upon a time, which chapter 2 very much reminded be of), love (of others and self), will (what is "will" really, especially in the context of the above quote?), help, and other areas of life.

  Well, it was interesting enough to keep me reading to the end. One of these days (soon, very soon), I'll start on the second pass, of actually doing the exercises. That will be more of a challenge. Must summon my inner energies to meet it.

• Real Magic. by Isacc Bonewits.

  Guestimation would tell me I'm about a third of the way through this one now. Definitely a different kind of ride than any of the previous ones. Not Wicca at all. It's actually more of a study regarding methods, theories, and principles surrounding magic and related topics. So far, anyway.

  The first chapter, The Laws of Magic (also discussed in his web page), discusses the principles behind which magicians are known to operate (whether they are aware of it consciously or not). The second chapter discusses a lot of the roots of magic, historical context, origins of the terminology itself, and convincingly points out the historical pattern of "magic" preceding common knowledge of various topics (at which point a subject ceases to be considered "magic" by society, and enters the realm of the everyday).

  Chapter three. Mulder. Mulder. Mulder. Oh, sorry. No need to get stuck on a single word. :) Parapsychology, ESP, telepathy, and other "out there" topics. Today, these are either considered non-existent myth, the work of spirits, or they might be even be called "magic". The unknown. That which science cannot currently explain. The occult. Mulder. Oh, sorry. ;)

  It effectively goes on to explain some efforts to apply science to these unknown areas. Believe it or not, the book actually makes a plausable case for a potentially scientifically explainable telepathy. Plausable. Could we all be walking transmitters, unconsciously sending out signals on either the electro-magnetic spectrum, or a whole other spectrum that current artificial equipment cannot measure? And certain individuals' minds are more or less attuned (or can be taught) to pick up these frequencies? Yes, plausable. And certainly interesting, whether one believes or not. Mulder.

  As for the other six chapters, I cannot comment, because I have not yet read them. :)

Arrggh. It's past my bedtime.

This review of Bitscape's recent reading materials has been brought to you by...

A brain that needs its sleep.

thank you.