The Look(s) of Success!

The Seven Strong Men

 . . . the stone pillars were once an entourage of Samoyeds giants walking through the mountains to Siberia in order to destroy the Mansi people. However, upon seeing the holy Mansi mountains, the shaman of the giants dropped his drum and the entire team froze into the stone pillars.

- Manpupuner Rock Formations, Wikipedia

Locally, the Seven Strong Men have adopted a legendary status, especially considering their location just a hair below the Arctic Circle. Adding to their legend are reports of a feeling of contentedness when visiting the towers. According to some visitors, all desires seem to float away during a visit to the area and local lore claims that spirits gathered in the area during ancient times.

- Atlas Obscura

Mathematical!

Katherine:  I know 2+2 is 4, and 4+4 is 8, and 8+8 is 16.  But what's 16+16?

Adrienne:  32

Katherine:  But why!

Adrienne:  I don't know love.  Daddy says that numbers might be just concepts that we made up that may or may not accurately represent reality.

Katherine:  Okay. (promptly falls asleep)

Thanks Wookiefoot!

Dredged up by chance from the memory hole:

These spiritual window-shoppers,
who idly ask ‘How much is that?’ Oh, I’m just looking 

. . . 

Even if you don’t know what you want
buy something 

. . . 

Start a huge, foolish project,
like Noah

It makes absolutely no difference
what people think of you 

- Rumi (filtered via ia Wookiefoot)

My only regret

Seems to me you're playing hard to get.
I played a cool kid once myself,
And it's my only regret.

- Help Stamp Out Loneliness, Record Shop

O'Shaughnessy's Cube

Based on careful observation of a large sample of the Purple Banshee clientele, O'Shaughnessy concluded that he could use three sets of two mutually exclusive attributes to create a universal classification system for the human content of any economic enterprise. 

Using the Herrick Exponential Rule of Sets, O'Shaughnessy found that for three sets of two mutually exclusive attributes the total number of combinations was 23. With this information he was able to construct the three- dimensional O'Shaughnessy Diagram of Economic Organization (O'Shaughnessy's Cube for short), as follows: 

Representing the total human content of the economic structure by a cube, O'Shaughnessy used his first pair of attributes to divide the structure into two parts - in front, NEAT; at the back, SLOPPY. 

The second pair of attributes divides the structure horizontally - the top LAZY; the lower BUSY. 

And the third pair divides vertically - BRIGHT to the right; STUPID to the left.

Serious psychonomics from David R. Boldt.

Mediator:  Could you describe his physique?
Grandfather:  Ordinary.
Grandfather:  I believe that he's fairly well-built,
Grandfather:  as all young men should be.
Grandfather:  Yes, in terms of legendary heroes, I would compare him to Hercules.
Grandfather:  In terms of gods, he's like Ares.
Grandfather:  Basically, he's built like your average person.
Mediator:  On what planet would that be considered average?
Grandfather:  Young men are meant to be buff.
Mediator:  (Grandpa must live in a world of bodybuilders.)

- Humanity Has Declined, Ep. 08

Mediator:  Oh, my watch is broken.
Grandfather:  You need a watch?
Grandfather:  (offers item) That should work.
Mediator:  Thank you very. . .
Mediator:  not much.
Mediator:  What is this?
Grandfather:  A wrist sundial.
Grandfather:  With a compass, you can accurately calculate the time.
Grandfather:  But it only works on sunny days.

- Humanity Has Declined, Ep. 07

Darkness: A Comic

Link.

St. Kilda

St. Kilda is an odd and isolated little island in the Outer Hebrides.  Thought I'd read somewhere that this might have been partial inspiration for Qwghlm.

Inhabited for a couple thousand years with very limited contact with the outside world, St. Kilda was evacuated in the 1930s.

Notable ancient stone structure referred to as the Amazon's House.

The Sign of the Broken Sword

"Sir Arthur St. Clare, as I have already said, was a man who read his Bible. That was what was the matter with him. When will people understand that it is useless for a man to read his Bible unless he also reads everybody else's Bible?" . . . "Of course, he read the Old Testament rather than the New. Of course, he found in the Old Testament anything that he wanted—lust, tyranny, treason. Oh, I dare say he was honest, as you call it. But what is the good of a man being honest in his worship of dishonesty?" 

"In each of the hot and secret countries to which the man went he kept a harem, he tortured witnesses, he amassed shameful gold; but certainly he would have said with steady eyes that he did it to the glory of the Lord. My own theology is sufficiently expressed by asking which Lord?"

- G.K. Chesterton, The Innocence of Father Brown

Ikiru

Kanji Watanabe: I can't afford to hate people. I don't have that kind of time.

Always true.

 

The Triumph of Primal Terror

I always knew this was going to happen. I always knew that skepticism and science were mere psychological decorations and vanities. Deep in our alligator brains we all know that the world is just chock full of evil and monsters and sinister forces aligned against us, and it is only a matter of time until they show up. Evolution knows this too. It knows what to do when the silent terror comes at you from out of the dark.

     - Alfonzo Smith

The Yozi Perspective

Nephilpal, on why the Yozi (Titan-like, Primordial beings) and their Akuma (evil Exalted) servants are completely incompatible with the well being and free will of every other entity in the Exalted RPG setting:

You spread a picnic down and the ants come. They do that, those ants. Not to worry, you can squash the ants. But ack! Something is wrong! They have spiders and the spiders are biting you and you are helpless and now they are wrapping you in a cocoon and the ants are crawling all over your picnic and eating it and you can't do anything about it. Damn the bugs! Damn them all! You wish you could squash them, but you can't. You hate them. You hate them all. The Exalted aren't heroes, they're just bugs with nasty venom. They all need squashing or taming into completely harmless pets... yes, train spiders to kill spiders. That will show them! 

. . . 

The akuma plan isn't really the akuma plan. It's the Yozi plan, which says "All of you are wrong. The setting is wrong. The universe is wrong. The war ended wrong. We made this. We should be in charge. Now, stop rebelling. Get off my damn picnic and give me back my Gameboy, you damn, dirty bugs!"

Raising The Wind

"Made idle by cynicism, these two bored intelligences turned to the study of prophecy and magic. While still young they learned of each other's existence and fame in such arts. They met secretly in Jerusalem and there made a pact to perform an operation known to occultists as "Raising the Wind". Then they separated and returned to their respective countries, where they patiently set to work preparing the operation. 

"This operation (which has never ever been successfully completed) involves the selection of an ordinary human conflict by powerful magicians who recruit for it's armies occult assistance and thereby raise the conflict to a higher power, investing it with apocalyptic significance. Finding Man's story long and wearisome, they wished to force the coming of the Antichrist and, what must follow, the coming of the Messiah and the End of All Things. To slake their boredom they wished to stage Armageddon in front of the pyramids. 

"The Father [of Cats] took the side of Islam, Cornu that of Christendom. The Father recruited healers; Cornu recruited the sick.  The Father summoned up assistance from the Alam al-Mithal [the dream world, the world of images]; Cornu struggled against the phantoms of the dream world."

      - The Arabian Nightmare, Robert Irwin

Modern Plutocracy

The Vernon Hotel at which The Twelve True Fishermen held their annual dinners was an institution such as can only exist in an oligarchical society which has almost gone mad on good manners. It was that topsy-turvy product--an "exclusive" commercial enterprise. That is, it was a thing which paid not by attracting people, but actually by turning people away. In the heart of a plutocracy tradesmen become cunning enough to be more fastidious than their customers. They positively create difficulties so that their wealthy and weary clients may spend money and diplomacy in overcoming them.

. . .

The waiter stood staring a few seconds, while there deepened on every face at table a strange shame which is wholly the product of our time.  It is the combination of modern humanitarianism with the horrible modern abyss between the souls of the rich and poor. A genuine historic aristocrat would have thrown things at the waiter, beginning with empty bottles, and very probably ending with money. A genuine democrat would have asked him, with comrade-like clearness of speech, what the devil he was doing. But these modern plutocrats could not bear a poor man near to them, either as a slave or as a friend. That something had gone wrong with the servants was merely a dull, hot embarrassment. They did not want to be brutal, and they dreaded the need to be benevolent. They wanted the thing, whatever it was, to be over.

     -  The Queer Feet, G.K. Chesterton

After the game is before the game.

(Nach dem Spiel ist vor dem Spiel)

Always loved the above saying by Josef "Sepp" Herberger (quoted at the beginning of Run Lola, Run).

Looking it up I came across this one which is also pretty great:

The next game/opponent is always the toughest one.

(Das nächste Spiel/Der nächste Gegner ist immer das/der schwerste)