Nature of Man

… nothing that happens to Man is ever natural …

My dear, don’t leave me now
Close at the edge of my end
All this time you have been my friend
Don’t go, stay for a while
My dear, you’re losing me now
This will be my last hour
Hear my voice, see my face
See how sick I am
How I long for your embrace

“There is no such thing as a natural death. Nothing that happens to [a] man is ever natural, since his presence calls the whole world into question. All men must die, but for every man his death is an accident. And even if he knows it and consents to it, an unjustifiable violation.”

Well, you may agree with the words or not, but those are the keyspring of The Lord of the Rings.
J.R.R.Tolkien on a BBC interview, quoting Simone de Beauvoir

Sand and Mercury,
The Gathering

The snippet, besides from listening to the song (which is the preferred method of course), can be found in two marginally touching collections, The Tolkien Music List (the collection side of which is obvious) and Tyrannorabbit’s Horrormetal Land, which collects appearances of spoken audio samples in metal music (hey, Amicus, there really is everything on the Web ;)

That Tyrannorabbit fellow, besides from obviously being color-blind, has some very good black-and-white (yeah, figures) photos of his bunny

This is my bunny. His name is Bun. Or, you can call him Mr. Bun if it so pleases you. Or you can call him Bunny. Or Phoebe, which was his original name before we noticed testicles. Or you can call him Sparky, as my grandmother is wont to, or call him Fluff, the preferred choice of my brother. You see, it doesn’t really matter what you call him, because he’s not going to come.

Yeah and verily, there you have rabbits in a nutshell. Ours is called “Зайо” (”Rabbit”) and because we call him “he”, many people think he’s male, although he is in fact female (I’m not sure he knows that either). Not much use of gender specific nouns if you only have one rabbit.

… had he an iPod?

And again, here goes the standard disclaimer:
If any iPod (TM) users find this image offensive in any way, please remember that this is an act of free speech, do not podcast threats towards our embassies, but resort to peaceful means of protest! “Jesus ™” and “jPod ™” are trademarks of their much respected owner, while the bitten apple logo is property of Adam & Eve Co. Ltd., Eden, Maryland (Nasdaq)

Here’s my take on the Muhammad cartoons topic. To any bunny readers who find this image offensive: remember this is an act of free speech! Please do not graze the ryegrass on our embassies, but resort to peaceful methods of protest!

(If you have no idea what this is about, check my bunnies category.)

Here’s a couple of others:

(via Assen)

If you don’t read Russian:

“We will crush the infidels with fire and sword”
and the voice from the back of the crowd adds:
“and caricatures!”

(and I’m a monkey)

We are all monkeys!
Time to accept the fact and learn from it. A short text-with-slideshow by Ernest Cline.

Monkeys whose brains have evolved to such an unmanageable size that it’s now pretty much impossible for them to stay happy for any length of time, in fact they’re the only animals which think they’re supposed to be happy; all the other animals can just be…