Vae -- New Year's Resolutions

[sythyry]

The translator tells me that it is just past First Day this year in your world, and that each First Day is the day to make resolutions, and today is the day to break them.  And what resolution that you made on First Day will you break first?  And how do you prefer to break them -- use you hammers, or with a celebration as of the throwing off of shackles, or with a furtive and a sneaky air, or some other way?

Comments

[striderhlc.livejournal.com]

I broke mine with an irritated glance at the omelette line, a look at my watch, another look at the omelette line, and then a few steps to the rack of pastries.

- HC

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

The pastries of Arfaen are excellent (though Sythyry forever favors those of Flooosh of long ago). The clever use of them Inconnu makes, to cause certain of his friends to break their vows.

[Bard tries to explain the actual intent to Vae, but fails. -bb]

[striderhlc.livejournal.com]

Upon further contemplation, it may be overly generous to refer to cafeteria doughnuts as "pastries" to begin with.

- HC

[bloofox.livejournal.com]

Weirdly enough I haven't broken mine yet. I've managed to go three
entire days eating only healthy things with los of vegetables and
whole grains and not, say, Taco Bell. (Not that I plan to /never/ eat
Taco Bell again, I just plan to eat healthy things the vast majority
of time.) If I break this resolution, then I shall do it in a furtive
and sneaky air as befits a fox...maybe have some nice overly procesed
greasy vole in a burrito.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

And why is this bell a sick bell? And could it be cured?

[foomf.livejournal.com]

It's complicated.

In the past, in an arid and hot part of one of our countries, there was a tradition of making homes and churches using baked or dried bricks of mud and straw, that would be painted over with a different mud (stucco). There was a particular architecture to these. A bell cast from iron (not as hard to come by in our world) was often hung from a steeple atop a chapel or shrine, not only in the churches but in the ranches, where workers could hear the bell and come in for their meals.

The Taco is a particular snack originally made with a kind of coarse corn flour cooked on a flat heated stone, folded around ground seasoned meat mixed with crisp leafy vegetable and sometimes cheese.

The name Taco Bell comes from the bell, and from the Taco, by the following curious and bizarre thing.

When I was a young monster, there was a surge in businesses that took a particular regional cuisine, created a standard, easily mass-fabricated version, gave it a clever name, and rented the right to use a the recipes, name, and marketing for the business. To make sure they got things "right" they would have to buy the food supplies from the owner (franchiser) of the name, and train their workers with the franchiser's trainers.

This resulted in a great deal of reliable but uncreative food outlets, and has had both good and bad effects. The food created and sold through these venues can be just as nutritious and beneficial as any other food, but they set people to testing what foods people would buy more of, and this resulted in an increase in the amounts of sugar and fat, at the expense of protein and other beneficial food components. It's possible to buy meals containing four to five times the amount of food energy that one person needs, but in one serving.

People who eat this way tend to become fat and unhealthy, due to a complicated feedback mechanism in our bodies.
As a result, we end up with a concept that all of these places (which produce food quickly, hence "fast food") are terribly unhealthy places to eat.

Actually Taco Bell, if one avoids their more bizarre recipes and focuses on their simpler fare, is one of the healthiest of such places to eat. But their more indulgent recipes are very tasty and very tempting, hence the Blue Fox being cautious.

[kibbe.livejournal.com]

Not everyone makes such resalutions. I find it silly myself. After all, its not like people will actualy keep thoes resalutions. Thay do it more because thay feel thay are expected to make them, than because there is any real heart behind them.
Thus many years ago I desided the best thing to do was the laugh at the whole thing.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

The translator suggested that some people seem to find a joy in making and then destroying their resolutions, but you are more kind and sober than that.

[kibbe.livejournal.com]

I do not know. At one point the intent was actualy to try and make resaputions that you could actualy do. Sorta as a way to make yourself better. AKA, I resolve to spend less nights setting tell 4 am playing WoW.
Now its more something people do because its a social thing, people make them because thay are expected to make them, not because thay actualy intend in any way shape or form to atempt to follow them. In a way, I guess its kinda sad.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

(OOC -- Last year I started to take them seriously, and kept both of mine and then some. This year we'll see, but I'm doing OK on the resolution to get at least one novel in print so far...)

[kibbe.livejournal.com]

oocly THats very good, you are a rather intertaining author, else I would not have stayed up tell 4 am to finnish reading the journal, nore would I be checking LJ so often to see if you had posted another.
Currently thay seem more interested in formula fiction more than anything else. Really its kinda sad. Might be best to start with a small press, get your name out there at lest.
YOu need an editor give me a yell at lest. I hav read more than one book before it went to the publisher.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

[Yay!]

[Yeah, the book in question is pretty much unpublishable. It's a first-person novel from the point of view of a sentient, enslaved tree. It's got kind of a 1970's-sf feel to it, from before the current set of formulas took over. I bounced it off a few publishers already. Now, it's time to explore the evolving world of self-publishing.]

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

I resolved not to make any resolutions, then realized the resolution was inherently self-breaking.

[mmsword.livejournal.com]

I have cheated this year by making a resolution which can not be broken until the next year. Giving one self a goal instead of a restriction can be helpful in these matters.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

And is the point something other than to break a resolution, then?

[mmsword.livejournal.com]

Pretty much, but I am careful in the vows I make. I would either make a very poor Gormoror if fiction is anything to go by.

[kris-schnee.livejournal.com]

Well, I did see my friends gleefully take out a sledgehammer and smash a clock that evening, not waiting till midnight lest they submit to the clock's tyranny even in destroying it.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

And is the clock called "promise"?

[archadia.livejournal.com]

I did not make myself any promises to break, because I realized I try my best every year.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

The better that is than not trying best!

[zeeth_kyrah]

I no longer make resolutions, but instead seek knowledge of the time ahead. I have gods I can believe want to better my life, rather than gods trying to make a good story of me (though it's an interesting story anyway), so I tend to trust what I'm told.

Were I to break a resolution I had made, it would be casually, and rarely deliberate; I would simply realize that oh, I cannot do this anymore, and so abandon it, or realize that I had forgotten and thus already broke it.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

The luckist lizard you are of all, to have such gods!