Fearman's definitions

Tarot cards

Intriguing form of folk art consisting typically of a deck of cards with 22 major trumps and four suits of minor trumps with fourteen cards each, although there are variations on this basic plan. Typically or ideally each card has an illustration of some kind. The variety of decks is considerable, although some are considerably more original in their inspiration (and/or better in their artistry) than others. Poetically resonant and often of use in artistic inspiration. Thought to have originated at least as far back as the late Middle Ages. Sadly done to death by New Agers who insist they are useful for divination, and Christian fundamentalists who put them close to the top of a veeerrry looonnngg list of stuff that will lead you straight to Hell, but still quite interesting.

Wanna see my collection of Tarot cards? I've got about thirty decks.

by Fearman October 1, 2007

moonspin

Something utterly ridiculous, ludicrous and otherwise beyond the pale, thought up either by someone blotto out of their mind trying to make their way home on a moonlit night, or someone impersonating them.

She's trying to give me the same old moonspin about how she couldn't help it, the bottle of Jack Daniels just jumped on her.

More of this moonspin about Creationism and that on the telly.

by Fearman January 15, 2008

skin job

Derogatory term for replicant or android used in the 1982 Ridley Scott movie "Blade Runner", starring Harrison Ford and Rutger Hauer, based on the novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?", by Philip K. Dick. Think of all the mean-spirited epithets humans have ever flung at each other all rolled into one.

You've still got to waste four more skin jobs, Deckard.

by Fearman October 31, 2007

klingons on the starboard bow

Expression used as a warning by person 1 when someone known mutually to 1 and 2, whom 2 does not wish to meet, comes into view. Don't Look Now, but ..., From a more literal usage in the original series of Star Trek.

Joe: I don't want to meet the Wirrals tonight, okay?
Mike (looking over Joe's shoulder): Umm ... Klingons on the starboard bow.
Joe: They're HERE?! Get me out of here.
Mike: Right this way ...,

by Fearman August 13, 2007

frigophilia

The urge to revisit a refrigerator every twenty seconds in the hope that something more appetising will somehow have materialised there in the meantime.

I'm getting frigophilia. I'm hungry, but not that hungry. Basically I'm bored.

by Fearman March 4, 2008

Simpson Rebuttal

An answer to the argument in favour of belief in God formulated in Pascal's Wager, formulated in turn by that great philosopher, Homer J. Simpson. Essentially, the God we are asked to believe in on the strength of Pascal's Wager, presumably the Judeo-Christian Jahweh, is merely one of thousands if not millions to have been worshipped throughout human history. Assuming the mere numbers of the faithful are an unreliable guide to the veracity of this god's existence (and no serious scholar of human beliefs would argue otherwise), then how do we know we've got the right god?

Simpson Rebuttal:

"But Marge! What if it's the wrong god? We'd only be making him angrier and angrier every Sunday!"

by Fearman February 23, 2008

yuppie's necktie fallacy

Fallacious belief that something must be good because you shelled out a lot of money for it. From the joke about two nouveau-riche types who are standing next to each other at a party wearing identical ties. One says, "I got this tie for five hundred Euro". The other says, "That's nothing. I got mine for at least two thousand Euro." Not to be confused with the principal that if you buy cheap, you get cheap ... for a yuppie's necktie is never cheap.

Don't spend a hundred grand on a car. Only those who can't see through the yuppie's necktie fallacy do that.

by Fearman September 16, 2007