Thoughts of Mythical things

Anything at Anytime's Topic Word -  Mythical

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Mythical -  The very word conjours up the thoughts of Dragons (of course my favorite first), Elves, Dwarves, Minotaurs, creatures and gods of old, Heros that made people strive to be like them.

     
Adventures from days gone past when things were easier.... and harder! 
The days we did not worry about bills and fixing cars or any of "Today's Techinical Worries".  The days that things were simple: you walked or you rode, you fought for what you believed or perished into an existance of servitude. 




Mythical stories from our past tell of Men and Women who accomplished great feats or suffered immense loss.  The gods of old moving men as pawns in a game of chess.  The Undefeatable being defeated by the simplest of things.  The Weak standing up to the the Strong.......... and overcoming insurmountable odds.

Items, things from the past, are mentioned as to have Mythical Powers that inable the bearer or owner to do or cause things to happen that would seem impossible.  Excalibur, The Holy Grail, Thor's Hammer, Zeus' Lightening, the Spear tip that Pierced Jesus' side, all items that provide the bearer Mythical Powers.

Dragons, creatures, that hold knowledge and powers that even by today's standards are unreal.  Flight such as birds, various breath from flame to ice, the ability to communicate with any and all things,  for one to have such powers is purely Mythical.



Today's society has lost what Myths and Mythical characters played in our lives. 

Have We become the "Age of Mythos Powers"?  The ability to go to the stars, communicate with others thousands of miles away, moving great distances in hours that would have taken months if not years in some cases, all could be considered Mythical Powers from days gone by. 

The thought that we as people have lost what those stories were telling us is sad!

Myth, Mythology, Legend, must be in our lives! 

These are the things that make us strive to be better than those before us.  These Mythical beast, Items, gods and Men, these stories of them make us push ourselves to new limits and new visions, without them we go nowhere.

Exercise of "M"s before "Topic Word"

As I write this, the Poll for "Topic Word" ends in just a couple of hours. By the time you read this it may already be closed.

The Winner will of course be written about tomorrow; however, a slight exercise, that came about by a challenge from a friend in one of the Forums, is in order.

The Challenge was to use all words from the Poll in a sentence or paragraph. I truly believe it is a fantastic exercise in writing.

The Poll words for this time around are:

Mythical,

Magniloquent,

Metronome,

Morphology,

Madam,

and Minotaur.




Today's exercise response comes about in the form of a simple sentence.

Exercise:


The magniloquent madam, with her knowledge of morphology, used a metronome to become a mythical minotaur.

Madam

To

Minotaur

Picture on Flickr                                                                                                                 Fantasy Minotaur via craigbrasco



That was almost to simple but turns out to make a very interesting sentence.


Writing, in my opinion, should be used to enlighten, enrich, encourage, inform, I could go on and on.
As writers (no matter now Elite or Novice) we should strive to get people involved in reading, writing and participating with what we do and in Life.





Sorry for the Delay today.  I have no idea why but for some reason the pictures were being a tad bit attitudish today.

Topic Word "Quasar" the word of choice today.

When I set this challenge I had no idea what I was about to run into by the choice you all made.  Talk about a Challenge (and I think by the time I am done with this you will agree it deserves a "C").

So if you will all bare with me,  I will do my best.  I will not get all "Scientific" on you and babble on with all the Science mumbo jumbo and what nots but will do a base description and go from there. 

I took a few semesters of Astronomy at college and when we got to Quasars we kept it pretty simple as there is still much being learned about them.  The first notable discoveries of them came about in the 1950s and 60s and confused and astounded Astronomers of the time, and still do to this day for the enormity of Power/Energy.


Quasar - as stated in one of the comments - A Quasi-Stellar radio source. 

Quasars are Large objects in space but so distant that there are very, very few that can be picked up by the human eye.  They are so distant that their light sources travel millions of light years and the farthest detected Quasar's emissions have traveled approximately 10 Billion light years.

Quasars put out serious energy.  An example that you might be able to imagine is this:  imagine yourself on a mountain top in the middle of a plain, the Sun is 5 miles above your head and someone is standing 15 miles away with a candle that provides the energy of a Quasar,  You would not, I repeat Not, be able to see the Sun because of the energy output from that Candle/Quasar. 

picture from Physics UNC

*note the caption*
That is how I came up with the analogy I did for the energy output of that candle compared to the Sun.
Another way to describe how powerful, energetic a Quasar is:  Luminosity from 1 (one) Quasar is the equivalent of roughly 1000 (yes One Thousand) Galaxies.

To date there is still little known about Quasars but they are constantly being found in deep space. 

Scientist still theorize and wonder at what power source could be used to fuel such a mechanism.  One such is described in the picture above with galaxies colliding, another is a super massive Black hole, and there are other theories all ranging from completely plausible to (yep, you guessed it) Sci-Fi dreaming.

Now, I am not beating up on Sci-Fi, I Love Sci-Fi, look at Star Trek by Gene Roddenberry.  Communicators that were hand sized, could communicate with no lines over vast distances.  Sound like something familiar, like maybe Cell Phones?  That list could go on and on.  The History Channel even had a 2 hour show about things in the here and now based on things from Star Trek.  So even the Sci-Fi dreaming holds real relevance in the debate on what powers Quasars.

So now you have as much understanding of Quasars as I do and I studied some Astronomy and Love Astronomy.

An Exercise before "Quasar" the Winner

Ok, so you can understand how "Quasar" became a word to type with Read the "Topic Word" label items.

One of the comments/votes also posed another challenge and I figured I could give that one a GO before getting into the real challenge of writing on Quasar.

Starts With One  is a follower and a friend in the google forums "Coffee Shop" and voted for "Quasar" but threw down another gauntlet by commenting about seeing all 6 words in a viable sentence or paragraph.  Well, Starts , here I go with this one and hope you Like: 

(Disclaimer for my Friends Across the Pond -- This is no Insult to your Monarch)

     I was having a quaint visit with friends in merry ole England and visiting sites and places unseen for years when one afternoon I (lowly, little ole me) received a Royal Invitation from the Queen to attend her at lunch to have a conversation over matters unknown to me.  Well, the appointed hour arrived for my visit with the Queen, I walked before Her with much trepidation not knowing what to expect nor how to act properly in the company of Royalty.  The Queen immediately put me at ease by asking me to sit and join her in a cup of tea  (the Smart Ass I am at times thought "but we can't both fit in a cup of tea", the wise man clamped my lips).  Once seated and enjoying a mellow Orange Peel tea (I imagine She likes a bit of flavor), a queer moment presented itself as the Queen reached down and brought forth a pad of paper and a quill and bottle of ink.  Not sure I was seeing right I asked her if that was a quill and was informed that it was indeed a quill.  It was the "Quill of Quality" passed down to the Ruling Monarch no matter the line of succession so that all Monarchs of the Empire would write Just Laws and also a reminder of times when things were not quite so "simple".  As We (I use the Empirical We as I was in company with Royalty) talked about many things the Queen made queer little marks and notes with the "Quill of Quality" and the conversation stayed quaint until the subject turned to Quasars in space and what my opinion was, for which I had no true answer.  A little later I thanked the Queen for a Quality visit that not many Americans would ever be able to enjoy and I left Her Royal Person and returned to my friends to regale a quaint visit with their Queen.

Starts, Thanks again for a unique challenge and I hope that fits the bill?  I know it was a LONG paragraph but we writers can take a few liberties from time to time.

Now the Topic Word "Quasar" will be a bit later as I need to consult my astronomy books to make sure I get a few things right.  I wouldn't want to pull your legs now would I?

Poll for "Topic Word" - First Letter Winner is "Q"

Well, for some reason the Poll gadget is not working properly today and will not let me post a new poll.

So, I shall post it in this manner to allow everyone to comment on the word they would like to see as the "Topic Word". 

It was a very tight race but Q pulled out a victory at the end and so the 6 words to pick from are:

1.  Queen

2.  Quality

3.  Queer

4.  Quaint

5.  Quill

6.  Quasar

As you can see, I have hopefully made up a diverse list out of the 6 words.  All you need to do is post in the comments and you can tell me the word or the number and when the Poll gadget starts working again I will post it in a Poll and place your answers there.  Remember 4 days and Poll Closes at 12:00 PM (Noon for those of you who get confused over am and pm when it pertains to 12:00 o'clock).

A New semi- Interactive Idea or Chosen Letters and Chosen Words

I am trying something new to see what it is like for me and those of you that are following me regularly.  I came across the idea when I read an article on Yahoo news about how one of the most Prestigious Universities at Oxford was doing away with a long time entrance admissions test.


The Idea is elegant in its simplicity.  People that had been seeking admissions basically had to do one thing and one thing only discuss/write about One (1) word only.  They had no notice of exactly what that One word was until they got into the room and turned over the paper that was on the desk.  The stopwatch starts there. 


So, I took it and modified it for myself and you the readers and will try to do this twice a month.  It will be done with two Polls that will run 4 days each.  The first of these Polls will be just like the one you see to your right consisting of 6 random letters chosen by my daughters and the winning letter will decide where I am to look for 6 random words in the Dictionary.  Then those 6 words will be posted in a Poll within 24 hours of the finish of the last Poll and will have 4 days to garner votes on which word is to be Used for the next blog topic.


I hope this is something that can make the site semi-interactive in allowing you the reader(s) help decide a topic.  As always, suggestions in your comments are always welcome and will do my best to see if I can write upon what topic(s) you are interested in. 


So take an active roll here and vote, just to the right at the top of the column, and let us all see what we come up with.