Picture Perfect

So I'm sitting in my room, listening to music. In the next room, is my brother and a girl he spends loads of time with, but doesn't really like. So he says. He once said "I probably won't realise what I've lost until it's gone."

The evilness is this: I found a lovely song by Billy Joel just now. Some of you may know it: Tell Her About It. It's playing full volume. It starts:

Listen boy I don't want to see you
Let a good thing slip away
You know I don't like watching anybody
Make the same mistakes I made
She's a real nice girl and she's always there for you
But a nice girl wouldn't tell you what you should do

Oh yes. Technology is great. Enables more efficient sibling annoyance!

So today is a Jewish fesitval, where people dress up in funny constumes and have fun. But why? Sure, us Jews do some pretty strange things, and some pretty cool things too, but they are done reaons.

Very quickly, Purim (meaning "raffle") was when an advisor (called Haman) to the king of the Achaemenid Empire (that's Persia to us) decided to give an enourmous sum of money to the ruler, in return for having sole discretion over the fate of the Jews in the empire (which was considerably large). His intention was to kill all the Jews (history repeats itself. It seems Jews have never really been free of this absurd desire people seem to have about obliterating them all the time. Just give us a break, dammit!) 

We celebrate because, obviously, this didn't happen and disaster was averted by the Queen. The events are recorded in the book of Esther in the Hebrew Scriptures. That genocide was averted explains why we celebrate, we dress up as a symbolic reference to the hiddeness of God's actions in saving the Jews - Interestingly, the name of God is not mentioned in the book of Esther once (though he is present if you know how to look). So we dress up and "hide" ourselves behind masks and costumes to symbolise this.

         As such, going to synagogue can be quite an interesting. I try to avoid synagouge members these days and yet here they all are, dressed in bizzare costumes, as devils, sailors, school masters, ladybirds, punks, and anything else you can imagine. It was like living a bizzare dream.

For more information in the medium of song, and to see such costumes in action, why not try this rather bizzare link which is under a minute long and explains it all quite well.

Also, I recently discovered an unspoken and up until now possibly altogether unknown connection between traditional Jewish Purim songs and African-American folk songs which were sung as they picked cotton in the fields. Compare to the Jewish version (not about picking cotton, but oddly the same tune) Mishe Nichnas Adar.

Here's a selection of videos of the same song, all sung in the style of the country of origin (of the people). Please note, anyone singing this song is probably drunk, close to it, or about to be if theyre above the permissable legal age to drink, so forgive the lesser musical abilities where applicable:  

Traditional Middle-Eastern Israeli,
Western/ 'a cappella'

Unfortunately, my mic isn't working otherwise I'd have sung a clearer (and much better) version for you all. Oh well!

It appears the Jewish conspiracy has permiated to previously unknown and astonishingly grass-root levels, right down to the Old Greats of Folk song. We are everywhere. Fear us.

*-*-*-*For some reason*-*-*-*-

My new blog post isn't working, so here it is: http://pictureperfect.blogspirit.com/archive/2008/03/21/jewish-festival-and-african-american-cotton-picking.html

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A new day, a new post! So close together too!

The reason is because I love and tenderly care for all my blog readers, wrapping them in cotton-wool and bubblewra, protecting them from the horrors of the world. I have to make sure you guys can all get on in life. Without me, you are all lost souls.

Ok, I lied.
The reason is, I have to work - and as we all know, anything but work is so much more appealing than the work you have to do - which usually has a strict deadline, by the way.

I decided to make a post because I think we are strange. We live in strange times, here in the west, where girls can be boys and boys can be girls, and everyone is right about everything even if they're wrong, and damnation to you if you can prove beyond reasonable doubt that one individual has more propensity to do well in one thing than another individual. Especially bad if you make a statement like "generally speaking, girls are bad at chess" (you really are, girls! Most girls don't even want to play chess, and those I know that do are terrible at it!) or "boys are good at everything!" 

I actually couldn't think of anything boys are stereotypically bad at, that's actually important...Ergo, boys are good at everything. Everything important.

Ok, I think I'm done with being vaguely politically incorrect! Back to work for me!!

Bye bye, and please come again. 

Hmm.
It's been a while, hasn't it? I've been rather busy. But I hear you ask, busy doing what? What could a professional layabout (read: student) have been doing to keep himself occupied?

The truth is, I've been busy with having fun, talking to Cat on msn, very rarely with university work, but mainly looking for one of those job things that common people get from time to time. Something to do with doing work in return for money.

As such, I've been very busy looking at job adverts and replying to them, very boring stuff indeed. Here are some of the most cliched phrases in the world. If you're advertising, please please please, don't use them. They're ever so boring.

Looking for enthusiastic people.
...No way?! You want people to be enthusiastic about your business - want them to do their work well? Rather your employees didn't tell clients how boring selling tea/rubber/something is?

Looking for young, enthusiastic people.
Similar to the one above. Whenever I see this I think "porn baron" and skip the ad. Seriously. Think about it. Why else would "enthusiastic" and "young" be a pre-requisite for a job?!

Ideal candidate must think out of the box.
Yeah, but this is so cliched, the person writing that phrase apparantly doesn't know how to.

Candidates must give 110%!
What?! How does that even work? I can give you 100%. What can i do beyond that?! Would you like a body part? My hand, maybe? If anything sounds like giving over an arm and a leg for a job, AKA signing yourself over to slavery, it's this.

Ideal candidate will be enthusiastic and willing to learn new things. Must be educated to degree level in business studies or relevant subject, have at least 2 years experience in sales, preferably in clothing retailers, preferably a blue chip name, preferably M&S, preferably going to the London School of Fashion, preferably female, 5'5, attractive, want to push the boundries, and have a sense of humour and be able to cook and and and and...
Ok, so maybe I got carried away. But I hate over specific ads. It's usually followed by an unreasonably low salary, or better still, I've seen ads making heavy demands on people followed by "this is a voluntary post."

This is a voluntary post.
It's amazing how many people want something for nothing. It's like the spam of the job-ads section. Sorry, this just had to go in.

Looking for a candidate to work in a newly established government department. Given the sensitive information they will have access to it is essential the applicant has security clearance at CTC level.
I kid you not, this was an actual ad. What the heck is the government DOING? Advertising for spies?!

 Anyway, cat is bugging me to publish, so i away i go. maybe this will be followed by more...