Alison dodges the show entirely, and shows her pretty self for some pre-recorded voice overs. We use Spike’s idents for the first time. “What’s That You Weigh Litte Alison?” is won by Maz! She’s now the proud owner of a weed from our garden. We fail to announce a winner for “Musical Whispers!”

Many a paddling-pool discussion and general stuff!

In the book “Dune” the author Frank Herbert, describes the rise of the Messiah 8000 years from now. Herbert, who studied among other subjects ecology, psychology and eastern philosophies, created a reliable world that describes in minute detail the rise of “qwitzat haderach” - the messiah (qfitzat haderech is an ancient kabalistic term that describes the ability to be in two places at once). The whole book is interwoven with wisdom that can serve the enlightened reader in his personal growth.

The process and change that the books’ hero, Paul Atreides, goes through is in fact a process of enlightenment and divine consciousness, and the recognition of our higher self that exists within us all.

One of the lines in the book is: “That which submits rules”. This short sentence holds the secret of true human enlightenment. All the cosmic forms are creative expressions of one force. All the mystical traditions say that one can experience cosmic unity through various exercises, by which the practitioner gradually eliminates his false identity (self) and his connection to the material world. In the end, the practitioner is able to fully experience the whole cosmos every single moment. When this is achieved the higher self is awakened.

The conscious person understands and experiences cosmic perfection in everything and what results is true awareness of all the processes and occurrences within the universe. He remains totally uncritical of anything. He who awakens to unified cosmos has powers, vision and wisdom that are far greater than the average person who is still identifying with the illusion and the false “self”.

Dune

Crappy jewelry on that page, but a nice succinct synopsis. This got me thinking about my own spiritual journey, where I’ve been, where I am, and maybe even where I’ll be in good time. There was a time, a few years ago, when I used to believe I was having a nihilistic panic attack. I used to lay awake at night and dream of the Abyss, and be drawn to it… In morbid curiosity, like an place that is so terrifyingly stark, you wish to avert your eyes from the horror, but the void locks your gaze and opens up wider for your terror.

It was only after much, cogitation on this (I don’t meditate, I like to think, and conject on issues). That I realised that I was seeing the void within myself, the threshold between the social fluff, and the core of my being. Later on, I came to call the void, Morrighan. Only after I recognised this threshold for what it was could I then work towards embracing it, and siphening threads through it, holding them up to the fluffy mass, finding mismatches, and launching salvos against my own personailty.

It was during this ongoing process that I found Druidry, and started to re-arrange priorities in my life and aim them at spiritual growth, support of family, extended-family, and tribe. I don’t know if ‘Druidry’ from an academic stand-point is the catalyst. Most likely, not, because I don’t study Druidry, I attempt to live it, and interact with it, and like-minded people. It’s a base-camp, a comfort zone of familiar tales, familiar ancient characters, and lessons to be learned. A nest in which mistakes can be made, and are learning experiences.

Where am I going with this? I don’t know, perhaps I should just recommend to people that typically hate Science Fiction, that Dune, its sequels and prequels are a lot more than Sci-Fi. They encompass at least one man’s belief in that every human is capable of bettering themselves, de-programming themselves, and turning themselves into a tool to aid others on the path.

technorati tags:dune, abyss, void, morrighan, druid, druidry, frank, herbert, science, fiction

Back for another week of crapped up shanannigans. More “What’s That you Weigh Little Alison.”, we dare technological boundaries, and find out what happens when you crap out your CPU on live radio, as we attempt to play the craaaa-azy new game of “Alison’s Arcade-A-Go-Go.” Did I mention we talk more crap than what is sitting at the top of a mountain in Illinois?

All for the love of a thous– Hang on, that’s not my line! Damn you JimJeroo, and your arcade winning ways!

BTW, those who’re waiting for the video. We’ve yet to review it’s quality, it was damn hot in the studio on that day, so we’ll have to see if the tape survived, once it cools down.

So, today, I took an exam in a product that I’ve never used outside of the classroom environment. I took the exam to certify, so that I can hopefully use the product in my current job. Odd huh?

Anyway, I passed, barely (being naked is proven to aid recall.)

I now have a CCSA NGX, and next friday is the CCSE NGX exam :S

technorati tags:exam, checkpoint, ccsa, ccse, tech

More fun and games for UKNR. We’re late, someone wins the rabbit-raisins, someone wins the used hair gel, and we announce the nights surprise proceedings!

You can subscribe to the podcast by pasting this link into your Podcast software.

For a whole ninety-seven minutes of radio mayhem and curry. Great times! You can grab the show from either the JimJeroo Radio Archives, or the Peace and Iyatoni Radio Archives… But not mine, ‘cos I haven’t got one yet :(

There was lots of talk about the Illinois River, Transformers Movie, The Imperial March, 1940s Playhouse, Tiny Diana Ross, and possibly more.

technorati tags:radio, shoutcast, jimjeroo, peace, iyatoni, uknr, uknova, curry

It’s a Hercules DJ Control MP3. It’s a twin-deck USB controller, basically it’s a Hercules DJ Console with the internal sound card ripped out. That suits me, ‘cos I’ve already got a soundcard, and it was almost £50 cheaper.

Unfortunately, it didn’t work with DJPlay, which is the software I use to mix my streams for the show. I’d naívely assumed that if it was a stripped down version, it would be generating the same event codes. Well, that was wrong. So with the help of the DJPlay team head developer, we managed to get some working code together, which has now been committed to CVS.

All the controls work, the only thing left to get working is the LEDs. We’ll see how long that takes.

technorati tags:hercules, dj, control, usb, console, mp3, shoutcast, radio, djplay

It was a great deal of fun, discovering interesting facts about Roald’s life, as well as playing with all the activity desks too. As we’d arrived quite early, we had free-run of the place before two coach-loads of kids turned up!

technorati tags:roald, dahl, great, missenden, museum, buckinghamshire, birthday