holidays without power

[amul]

So first off, Happy Diwali, everyone.

The festival marks the victory of good over evil.

On the day of Diwali, traditionally, the old and the young, rich and poor, wear new dresses, share sweets and also burn firecrackers. The North Indian business community starts their financial new year on Diwali and new account books are opened on this day.

Hindus find cause to celebrate this festival for different reasons:
In North India, Diwali celebrates the return of the Rama, King of Ayodhya, his wife Sita and brother Lakshmana to Ayodhya from a war in which he killed the demon king Ravana. It is believed that the people lit oil lamps along the way to light their path in the darkness. In North India, the festival is held on the final day of the Vikram calendar. The following day marks the beginning of the North Indian new year, and is called Annakut.
In South India, it commemorates the killing of Narakasura, an evil demon, by Lord Krishna. In South India, Diwali does not coincide with the beginning of a new year as South Indians follow a different calendar, the Shalivahana calendar.
In Bhavishyottara and Bramhavaivarta Purana, Diwali is associated with the Daitya king Bali, who is allowed to return to earth once a year.

Oddly, I was always told we were celebrating Lakshmi's demon-slaying escapades. Either way, I'm lighting candles to celebrate demon-slaying. My religion is cool. :)



Curiously, today is also the day all of my recent internet purchases have arrived.  A Raku  pot I ordered at GenCon (broken, unfortunately), my DDR pad and my yoga DVDs. A small collection of DVDs I bought to test my degree of addiction. Another piece of The Quiet Plan. A CD that was on backorder since Gaian Mind.

Even more oddly, yesterday nearly every device I regularly use lost power: my memo recorder, my CD/mp3-disc player, my iPod (which needs reformateding now), and worst of all, Maggie. How does Maggie run out of power? I left her with some valet parking and they had to ask me to walk up to her to help them find the battery to jump her. What did they do to my little baby? Manors won't even tell me, he just smiles wickedly, like it's punishment for something I did wrong.

Of course, I have had no time to restore power to my battery-operated life-aids, nor will I have time to begin my exercise plans, since I must immediately Away to the northern suburbs to spend the night in prayer, punctuated with arguments with my mother, who will undoubtedly want to set me up with A Nice Indian Girl, and discussions with my brother over all the ways in which I could easily Get Rich Quick.

Disturbing thought: On Saturday, my parents will discover that I've been working with nude models. Oh, that's going to be fun.

Anyway, I must find some time to schedule to figure out how to schedule my new exercise regiment. And buy groceries. I'm getting really sick really getting sick really getting really sick I am very tired of eating leftovers, although I suppose I should be grateful that I never learned how to cook for less than four.

At any rate, this means that I'll definitely need to be getting up even earlier than before, so I need to rework my morning schedule (which I haven't been following, anyway). Perhaps I should establish a Nightly Routine, too, so that I can try to get a decent night's rest from now on. I don't know when's the last time I got more than four hours.

Piss and bother, all I really know is that I need to edit two photos and print them four times, and double- and triple-check that my website is finished.

It would be very nice if people told me what they thought of the new site, and if it works on their computers.

Comments

[mothburning.livejournal.com]

That's cool, Samhain marks the beginning of a new year, too.

I think the website's kind of clunky, according to Microsoft IE on WindowsXP. I'd have to go into detail...later. We need to have a word about fonts.

[arkadyrader.livejournal.com]

As far as I can tell everything works well. I like the new layout mucho. I also like the thumbnails that pop up for each category.
Cool Daddio

[mamafrog.livejournal.com]

It sucks to view with dial-up, but everything sucks with dial-up. It looks good otherwise.