It's Sunday!

Time for Sunday School Lessons!

Tahrirolvasyleh by Ayatollah Khomeini

"A man can have sexual pleasure from a child as young as a baby. However he should not penetrate, but sodomising is acceptable. If the man penetrates and damages the child then he should be responsible for her subsistence all her life. This girl, however does not count as one of his four permanent wives. The man will not be eligible to marry the girls sister." - From Khomeini's book, "Tahrirolvasyleh", fourth volume, Problem 12, Darol Elm, Qom, Iran, 1990

"A man can have sex with animals such as sheep, cows, camels and so on. However he should kill the animal after he has his orgasm. He should not sell the meat to the people in his own village, however selling the meat to the next door village should be fine." - From Khomeini's book, "Tahrirolvasyleh", fourth volume, Darol Elm, Qom, Iran, 1990

When I stumbled across this my first thought was "Hooray! Not very often you get such permissiveness in religious studies, and I've had my eye on one of the cows down at my neighbor's dairy farm! If Khomeini says it's cool, I'm going for it!"

But if I have to kill the beast, and haul it off to another village to sell it, is this not stealing from my neighbor? It is always something! Some little detail that ruins the whole party!

I am not too jazzed about cornholing a baby, and in fact the whole idea sounds cruel and hideous to me. But if we are to spend time and energy fighting vulgar and obscene activities, let's not be distracted by every little questionable deed that pops up - not when the truly obscene policies of Bush/Cheney/Rice are still molesting everything that is good and decent in the world!

Damn. That sure is a purty cow.

I'm Drawing Again.

The backache is about gone. I'm working on a Christmas Card for the same Welsh B&B that I did the September Project for, and it will be visible here around Christmastime.

iVolume Works!

I told you I'd let you know. Everything appears to be excellent. I've been listening to music all morning, and have not noticed any songs that are too loud or too quiet. And I HAVE noticed that songs that used to have this problem are now fixed. As far as I can tell there is NO loss. I think the software claims there is no loss to original file data, but whatever - as long as it still sounds as good to me, who cares?

Cranky Old Man Corner

I got the following from (bookseller's name not the issue here):

Hello! This is (bnntih). I hope you're having a good weekend so far! You recently ordered a copy of Nemesis [Audiobook] by Asimov, Isaac from us, and I wanted to check in with you. Has it arrived safely? Was the condition satisfactory? And finally, if you needed help, was our Customer Service staff courteous? If not, please let me know immediately. We would be grateful for the opportunity to correct any errors. If your order has arrived, and you were satisfied with your purchase, would you mind leaving us feedback on Amazon.com? This helps future customers decide whether or not they'd like to buy from us, and helps Amazon know how we're performing. To make it easy on you, feel free to use the form provided below. If you'd prefer, you can also log into your Amazon account and click on "open and recently shipped orders."Remember, feedback is permanent. If you had any problems or issues with your order, we humbly ask that you give us a chance to make things right before you leave feedback. Thanks again, and have a great day!

Well hell, I wanta be a good citizen and help these folks keep their ratings up - why not? This email I ended up sending back to (bnntih) is why not:

Dear (bnntih)

Here is a comment I just typed at amazon:

I would rate more if I did not have to comment. I got the freakin book, I'm happy, what more is there to say? This is a complaint against AMAZON's rating terms, not (bnntih). No complaints with (bnntih), but this is my second time to rate and my second time to be forced to add comments. I won't rate any more. Too many emails, too much "feedback" etc. For crying out loud, I just bought a book, I'm not a professional reviewer. To (bnntih): Show this review to amazon... Thank you. Mark

Here is the next thing that popped up on amazon's form:

Your comment is too long. The maximum length is 400 characters.

I love shopping at amazon and getting cheap used audiobooks - but all this review and rating crap is just junk mail unless they simplify. Thanks for the book and the service, but this is the last rating from me. Again, not complaining about YOU - just letting you know why this one transaction did not get rated on amazon.

.

7 comments:

eeTeeD said...

sex with a pig can't be okay, can it?

pig's are an unclean animal to moslems, right?

RHoward454 said...

You're scarin' me. Seriously!

Benny said...

Boy, you're on a roll, Pumpie!

What a fun, satisfying "read" THIS was!

I'm buying that iVolume thing. I started it, and of course it only does a few at a time, then stops, making you wait 20 seconds before it will let you click "continue" to do more. Of COURSE you're gonna buy it, unless you have all day to sit there and wait on it.

Mark Martin said...

oh yeah, definitely! It's not freeware, but it's just 30 bucks! It's a steal!!!

Jed Alexander said...

You listen to Asimov? I have tons, TONS of MP3 audio books--not asimov, but lots of other sci fi--Frank Herbert, Phillip K. Dick, Neil Stephenson, William Gibson, and, you know, mysterys, espionage, sci fi--for some reason I kept thinking you'd think all this stuff sucked. Totally irrational, I know, but for similar reasons to what spurred the recent "100 films I like" list, Your taste in books has been a mystery to me, and I didn't want my taste in audio books to be subjected to your judgement.

Not only do I listen to a lot of stuff I'd never actually read, but I've found that I enjoy a lot of books I never thought I would, so my standards are probably much lower than yours.

I have all the James Bond books, which were a blast.

I have some things I thought I'd like but couldn't seem to get through, like all the Tarzan and John Carter from Mars books. Which I have all of.

I've got those Hannibal Lecter books. The first two aren't bad but the last one is horrendous.

I've got that Angels and Demons book by the guy who wrote the DaVinci Code. It's even less plausible and more campy than James Bond. Horrible writing, but a great read.

All the Narnia books, John Le Carre, Larry McMurtry, Eoin Colfer (all the Artemis Fowl books), Just about everything from Carl Hiaasen, Rosemary's Baby read by MIA FERROW. I am Legend, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Running with Scissors, Harlan Ellison short stories, Haruki Murakami's Kafka by the Shore and Satanic Verses.

The Dune Quadrilogy. (The reader is horrible, and I can't recommend the 4th).

The Stand. The Godfather. That newish Elmore Leonard, Up In Honey's Room. Life of Pi.

I've even got one of your favorites, Pumpie, To Kill a Mockingbird.

All are of mixed quality. Some are obviously recorded from audio tapes and the sound isn't great, some of the narrators suck, but all are unabridged.

I haven't really listened to Satanic Verses or anything that heavy. What I've discovered is that it's pretty much impossible for me to listen to serious li-rit-ture while I'm drawing. It must be, for the most part, junkfood reading.

I got these in a a totally illegal way which I will not discuss. It's the usual way you might be thinking of.

I'm a total audio book junkie, and once I figured out how to get them through this totally illegal method I will not discuss, I stopped getting them at the library and have been downloading them by the truckload.

You may not wish to avail yourself of my nefarious ways, though. Bt they're books!! It's like the library except not! And I also buy a ton of the regular kind, so, you know, I'm still paying my intellectual property dues.

And how cheap could these Amazon books be? If it's from a used bookstore that's usually 4 bucks postage! I can get a used book for less than postage alone at a used book store!

Boscoe said...

I'm not sure what your issue is with the feedback thingy on Amazon. I think you're making a mountain out of an anthill.

Nobody is demanding you write a novel, just say: "Wow! Fast shipping! Thanks!" or some shit. A minutely detailed review isn't required. It's just to help buyers know who the better sellers are. Just like feedback on Ebay. It's no biggie dude. Click three times, type "no problems, excellent seller!" and done.

I usually let my backlog build up for a month or two, then spend five "grueling" minutes doing them all at once.

Boscoe said...

hee hee... To be honest, when I do my monthly mass feedback, I usually type in one, then copy and paste the same comment into all the rest...