Comments | cmzero: The Oracle will answer but one question; ask wisely.

cmzero

The Oracle will answer but one question; ask wisely.

Jul 20, 2006 11:00

From eternalism, thunderphoenix, et al.

If you want to take part, reply to this entry. I will poke around in your list of interests on your profile and ask you one question about one of them. You wax rhapsodic on the subject of your interest for the edification of all and we'll learn something keen about you. Then you post these instructions in your own journal.

interesting memes

Comments 12

thunderphoenix July 20 2006, 18:20:33 UTC

Meeee!

cmzero July 20 2006, 18:59:17 UTC

Explain "Katamari Damancy."

thunderphoenix July 20 2006, 19:05:40 UTC

Katamari Damancy is a Playstation 2 game. It is very unorthodox in that you take the role of a small space prince, and your father, the King of All Cosmos, has charged you with rolling a ball like object. This object called a "Katamari", seems to have some sort of infinite adhesiveness, as when it touches something of a suitable size, that something instantly sticks to it. So, the main thrust of the game is to roll the katamari around, collecting objects and making the ball of junk bigger. A notable aspect of the game is the control scheme: the buttons are almost completely unused. You control the rolling using only the two directional sticks.

pretzelcoatl July 20 2006, 18:28:54 UTC

Hit me.

(...Not literally, of course.)

cmzero July 20 2006, 19:00:14 UTC

Explain "transcendentalism."

pretzelcoatl July 20 2006, 20:10:57 UTC

Oh man. These keep on getting progressively tougher. (Well, okay, the description of the flying chorus of blueberries in eternalism's journal was easy ( ... )

bugen July 21 2006, 00:37:59 UTC

*replies*

cmzero July 21 2006, 01:03:50 UTC

Explain "Suikoden" (without spoilers).

bugen July 21 2006, 02:58:21 UTC

Fantasy RPG series based very loosely on the old Chinese book "Outlaws of the Marsh" (a.k.a. "All Men Are Brothers" or "The Water Margin"), which I'm vaugely interested in reading just due to the connection (though, not enough to actually track down and buy a copy). I've only played the first and third installments, so I'm not really sure if I'm a good person to be commenting on the series ( ... )

westmarked July 21 2006, 04:01:10 UTC

Although I haven't responded to matadin and thunderphoenix yet, I might as well jump on this one too.

cmzero July 21 2006, 06:01:25 UTC

I'll break from the "explain" pattern a bit for you:

Tell me some piece of church history I'm probably not aware of but that you find interesting.

westmarked July 23 2006, 19:44:00 UTC

Well, if you're going to break the pattern, so will I:

You probably are aware of the conflict between Pope St. Gregory VII and Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV. Typically, the conflict is portrayed in history textbooks as an example of the power of the Medieval Church, how Gregory excommunicated Henry and forced him to submit to papal claims of authority before restoring him to good graces. I distinctly remember the picture of the history text in Ms. Mott's class (I'm guessing it was the same printing you used as well) showing poor Henry doing penance in the snow.

There are just a couple of problems with this portrayal. The first is that the conflict was over the appointment of bishops--specifically, Henry, like many kings of the time, was insisting that it was his right to pick his country's bishops. This is conflict still happening in some parts of the world; suffice it to say for now that I don't think many modern readers would oppose a church having the right to select it's own leaders ( ... )