{"id":5,"date":"2001-12-15T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2001-12-15T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flamingspork.com\/blog\/?p=5"},"modified":"2001-12-15T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2001-12-15T05:00:00","slug":"happy-litha","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flamingspork.com\/blog\/2001\/12\/15\/happy-litha\/","title":{"rendered":"Happy Litha!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s that time of year again, where half the country goes mad for a celebration of something they barely beleive in. There&#8217;ll be lies told to our children and drunken antics at the company&#8217;s expense.<\/p>\n<p>As a child, Christmas was a source of presents and an opportunity to light candles. On Christmas eve I would head into the city with mum and my brother and end up coming home after (or close to) dark. It was never a religous deal, I wasn&#8217;t brought up that way and would never develop an affinity for any Christian based faith.<\/p>\n<p>As a young teen, it was something that always came along. I viewed it as a time where I could get some stuf I wanted without having to save for years or really try and convince mum and dad to get it for me.<\/p>\n<p>Growing up, many of my friends didn&#8217;t celebrate it at all.  Be it because of being Jewish, coming from another country or smiply not doing it. I began to see my own thoughts echoed here. It&#8217;s not part of my religion. It&#8217;s not something I care about the Christian heratage of. I&#8217;m not into the Christian Imagery, the songs or a concept of there being one time of year when you&#8217;re meant to be nice.<\/p>\n<p>If you can&#8217;t be nice and generous all year then you should probably just walk off the edge of the world &#8211; you&#8217;re not helping it get any better. Go on, fuck off.<\/p>\n<p>One word was interesting though. Yule. What did it mean? Where did it come from? Why is there a yule log, yuletidings being brought and it&#8217;s christmas? Well, it&#8217;s not christmas &#8211; and technically, it&#8217;s not yule either. It&#8217;s doubtful that the majority of people in Australia care, they&#8217;re happy to live in ignorant bliss. Ignorant in bliss of so many other things. Blissfully ignorant of so many other things.<\/p>\n<p>With those ignorant around me, I say merry Litha. Look it up, learn something, capture something over the break &#8211; your mind. Get off your arse and think.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s that time of year again, where half the country goes mad for a celebration of something they barely beleive in. There&#8217;ll be lies told to our children and drunken antics at the company&#8217;s expense. As a child, Christmas was &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flamingspork.com\/blog\/2001\/12\/15\/happy-litha\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-the-universe-and-everything"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5a6n8-5","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":875,"url":"https:\/\/www.flamingspork.com\/blog\/2007\/08\/02\/backup-solution-for-mum\/","url_meta":{"origin":5,"position":0},"title":"Backup solution for mum&#8230;","author":"Stewart Smith","date":"2007-08-02","format":false,"excerpt":"Dear Lazyweb, I really want a GNOME application with a big button that says \"backup\" and proceeds to ask for a series of DVDs, on which it writes out everything on the hard disk (\/ and \/home) which can then (relatively easily) be used to restore the system. I figure\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;GNOME&quot;","block_context":{"text":"GNOME","link":"https:\/\/www.flamingspork.com\/blog\/category\/gnome\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":736,"url":"https:\/\/www.flamingspork.com\/blog\/2006\/09\/19\/wrt54gl-client-mode-openwrt-fun\/","url_meta":{"origin":5,"position":1},"title":"WRT54GL client mode OpenWRT fun!","author":"Stewart Smith","date":"2006-09-19","format":false,"excerpt":"the wireless USB dongle I had running on my MythTV box had drivers that weren't always reliable. I have recently totally decided that if I haven't had time to debug them and fix the problems by now, I won't in the near future. Today a courier arrived with two of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;cool gadgets&quot;","block_context":{"text":"cool gadgets","link":"https:\/\/www.flamingspork.com\/blog\/category\/cool-gadgets\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":366,"url":"https:\/\/www.flamingspork.com\/blog\/2005\/03\/01\/epson-c65-on-ubuntu-linux-and-debian\/","url_meta":{"origin":5,"position":2},"title":"Epson C65 on Ubuntu Linux (and Debian)","author":"Stewart Smith","date":"2005-03-01","format":false,"excerpt":"Quite easy to get going under Warty (as well as Debian Sid). Add a printer (System Configuration -> Printers, double click 'Add Printer'). Select Local Printer, \"USB Printer #1\" as the port, then, select the model as Epson Stylus C64. Works fine. I guess you can fiddle with quality settings\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.flamingspork.com\/blog\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":338,"url":"https:\/\/www.flamingspork.com\/blog\/2005\/01\/14\/rt2500-wireless-pci-card-on-ubuntu\/","url_meta":{"origin":5,"position":3},"title":"RT2500 wireless PCI card on Ubuntu","author":"Stewart Smith","date":"2005-01-14","format":false,"excerpt":"Got the two cards today. Ordered from i-Tech (mob in Sydney, had it delivered here). Were $59AUD each (plus shipping, which was $15 for the two of them). Really painless setup! One was for the Ubuntu system my mum uses, the other for the Windows system my brother uses. Well,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;cool gadgets&quot;","block_context":{"text":"cool gadgets","link":"https:\/\/www.flamingspork.com\/blog\/category\/cool-gadgets\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9,"url":"https:\/\/www.flamingspork.com\/blog\/2001\/12\/24\/christmas-routine\/","url_meta":{"origin":5,"position":4},"title":"christmas routine","author":"Stewart Smith","date":"2001-12-24","format":false,"excerpt":"It's not a ritual, it's a routine. Six months from the original Yule, a mile away from any meaning that tonight has to Christian folk, I trod down the stairs to participate in the lighting of the candles. Yes, every year we light candles, turn the lights out, look at\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;life, the universe and everything&quot;","block_context":{"text":"life, the universe and everything","link":"https:\/\/www.flamingspork.com\/blog\/category\/life-the-universe-and-everything\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":958,"url":"https:\/\/www.flamingspork.com\/blog\/2007\/12\/14\/my-2nd-book-is-available-mysql-51-cluster-dba-certification-study-guide\/","url_meta":{"origin":5,"position":5},"title":"My 2nd book is available! (MySQL 5.1 Cluster DBA Certification Study Guide)","author":"Stewart Smith","date":"2007-12-14","format":false,"excerpt":"Neither of the books I've been an author of has been just me. For Practical MythTV (Christmas is coming, buy it for all your TV and tech loving friends!), Michael Still and I worked hard to get a well rounded and practical (not to mention good) book. I think we\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;mysql&quot;","block_context":{"text":"mysql","link":"https:\/\/www.flamingspork.com\/blog\/category\/work-et-al\/mysql\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=flamin-20&l=ur2&o=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flamingspork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flamingspork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flamingspork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flamingspork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flamingspork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.flamingspork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2504,"href":"https:\/\/www.flamingspork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5\/revisions\/2504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flamingspork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flamingspork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flamingspork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}