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| New Worsts -Rant alert-Long has the void of my Xanga account lain in silence. Today, I have decided it shall be no more.
Okay, well at least not today... What shatters the silence that has been the norm for so long? Could it be the formal announcement that Becky and I are pregnant? (No, because last I checked males can't get pregnant.) Could it be that I have accomplished something great, like putting my elbow in my ear? Also not true but a bit warmer than the last possibility. Could it be I was so bored that I felt the need to ask rhetorical questions that would not likely receive any answers anyway? Warmer yet, but still not quite spot on... Apparently I stink at my own guessing games.
<Rant alert; you've been warned!>
If you (yes you, dear reader) have been reading this blog long enough or have gotten bored enough to go back and read the past entries, you're likely a loser that needs something better to do (no offense) but you would also know that I am of the opinion that Spanglish is the worst movie ever made. EVAR! Well, nary did I think the day would come when such a dismal film could be bested in it's evil until several weeks ago when my wife and I subjected ourselves to the entirety of the movie remake of Mama Mia. Instead of giving you brain damage, cancer, AIDs and teen pregnancy by describing its horror to you I'll simply say that Pierce Brosnan should never sing. Not in a movie, not on stage, not even in the shower. Not EVAR! If nothing else (and that's giving quite a bit of leeway) he'll never be able to show his face in another action movie -or any other kind of film for that matter- again. That is to say unless he sings in it. That would be enough to make any bad guy in said film to explode in a firey ball visiable from space since no other sequence of events would be physically possible. So, in short, don't see Mama Mia unless you're eager to see what's at the top of the charts in movie hell.
<Rant over...>
Ah, that was refreshing was it not? No? You need more you say? Well, hold onto your hermeneutic crib notes, Nancy* because...
<Rant alert II; this time with less seriousness and more religion>
Yesterday, I *finally* finishing the 'His Dark Materials' (The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife and The book so Terrible it should be called '500 pages of different ways to say "I hate the church"' (aka The Amber Spyglass)) trilogy by Philip Pullman. About a year ago when everyone was still spending money and arguing about whether James Bond and Nicole Kidman would really make a good couple on screen, I started reading The Golden Compass. At the time I couldn't put the book down because I have to admit The Golden Compass is a page turner and a compelling story. Unfortunately, if I knew then how the story ended two volumes later I would have never picked it up.
Now before you (dear reader) start to say, "Aha, here we go, another Bible thumping Christian is going to bash poor old Philip for disagreeing with the church," I should probably clarify that I didn't dislike The Amber(gris) Spyglass because of Philip Pullman's views of religion. People have hated everything having to do with religion ever since God said, 'Hey, don't do that!' sometime around creation; it's nothing new and if history has shown anything it's proved that having an opinion on something doesn't make it any more or less true. For example, I'm of the opinion that healthy eating is the reason I haven't gained as much weight this winter as I have in past years, when in fact it's because I really have no idea how much I currently weigh.
No, my issue with book three of the Dark Materials trilogy boils down to two reasons.
First, The Amber Spyglass should be two books. Anyone who has taken high school english knows that a good story has an opening, conflict, rising action, climax, falling action, conflict resolution and denoument (YMMV, depending on quality of English class). The Amber Spyglass has two of all of the above. There's a very clear breaking point where the book could have easily been split into two. Combined with the fact that it's nearly twice as long as the other two books in the trilogy I'm half tempted to believe this may have been the original intent. However, to be fair the second book resulting from such a split would have been epically lame since the second half of the book is pure insanity interspersed with heavy handed, obtrusive reminders that the church is evil and God is dead.
Okay, admittedly, that's a rather picky reason for disliking a book and to be fair there's nothing against having an 'arched' storyline. Suffice to say that around page 300, the rest of the 200 or so seem to double in length (and oddly enough, halve in what they actually say).
The second reason I disliked the book is because of the weird change in style Pullman attempts at the aforementioned 'split' in the book. It's as if Pullman decided halfway through that he hadn't made it obvious enough that he hates the church and God and anything having to do with Christianity. To compensate for this he uses the old 'fortune cookie trick' by putting "and there was no God" (or something roughly similar) after random sentences. I can take the unabashed hatred (and believe the rarely stone serious me that it's nothing short of hatred with a capital wet hen) for religion, but to smack the reader with it upside the head in a way that makes the story stumble is literary sin worse than using incorrect punctuation?
Fortunately, by the end of the book Pullman had a couple of trumps left in his hand as the awkward romance between the main characters finally turns sexual (anyone who has read The Lord of the Flies would giggle sophmorically the thinly vailed symbolism) which is apparently the answer to saving matter, reality and all of existence as we know it. Even so, not to let a good story gone bad with author intrusion end on a happy note, Pullman also is sure to permanently separate the two young lovers forever(?) making sure that anyone who was still holding the book and reading the last 15 pages would walk away thinking, "why the heck did I bother finishing" or "Ha, serves them right!" Throw in a subtle suggestion that everything in the story eventually repeats and the reader is basically back at the beginning of The Golden Compass.
<Rant II complete>
In the weeks to come I'll have something more worthwhile to share (seriously) but I thought for this 're-entry' into the blogging (I hate that word) world I would keep it light and fluffy (as if mixed by waterfall). If you have your own opinion of the Dark Materials trilogy, feel free to chime in even though I realize its as last week as first generation iPhones. If you have an opinion on Mama Mia, keep it to yourself; I can only handle one baby at a time.
*Aka Emerich, the paper towel elf
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| Choose your own moral lesson... As I walked into the office yesterday morning I spotted a plate of cookies that one of our new employees had made to share with the office. It's been hard to keep from eating the whole plate as they are very good but as I walked in this morning and saw them a unique thought came to mind.
I should preface this with stating that since NaNoWriMo is coming up I've been writing short blurbs everyday to get into the habit of forcing myself to write. This is today's (apparently).
Imagine you are offered a plate of cookies by someone you know fairly well. They look delicious and upon asking it just so turns out that they're you're favorite type. You take one and take a bite and as you taste the cookie you realize it's the most delicious cookie you have ever tasted in your entire life. You swallow and prepare to take another bite but before you do the person offering you the cookies says, "Oh, I almost forgot. One of this cookies is poisoned and if you happen to eat that one you'll become very, very ill." You look at the person, then at the cookies -thinking about how good they tasted- then back at the person. What do you do?
I was thinking this would be a good illustration for a few different things, but I thought I'd throw it out for interpretation instead. In the meantime, I haven't been gone, just very, very busy with very, very uninteresting things like classes for getting my teaching certification and work. Once NaNoWriMo hits I may be around more; time will tell.
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| I'm not dead...I feel happy...I feel happy...I feel...*ugh*
Actually, I am doing pretty well at the moment, but I'm busier than ever with education classes (I'm taking 3 of the 7 required classes for certification) and work. Between the two of those I hardly have time to do anything else. I like the focus but I'm finding it difficult being subjected to so much structure after having so much free time. This week, any spare moments I have are currently consumed by SPORE, which, if you haven't seen it and enjoy video games AT ALL, you should.
More to come later...
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| Back to where?I'm headed back to school today. Specifically, at 7:15 tonight. I've finally enrolled in classes which will allow me to get my teaching certification.
I'm looking forward to it but I already almost missed an assignment and my textbook also hasn't come in yet.
Here's my fall schedule:
Foundations of reading in the content areas - M 7:15P-9:45P
Ed Psych - W 4:30P-7:00P
Intro to Spec. Ed. - S 8:30A-12:30P
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| Resistance is futileWhat a week...
Work has been a bear; the start of the new fiscal year along with an increase in the area I serve has resulted in a veritable flood of info calls and follow up intakes (if that doesn't make sense, suffice to say I'm busy). Fortunately, I'm getting to the point now where I'm running out of funding to distribute which makes the info calls a little easier though I have to admit I hate telling people I can't help them.
In any event, today I would have broken even with the outstanding number things I need to do but I woke up covered in hives and unable to stop itching. I took a couple of antihistamines and now I'm feeling very out of it, but at least my skin isn't trying to convince my brain of removal. I just hope whatever it was that cause the reaction is out of my system; I don't have any known allergies so something like this gets me a little concerned. That's neither here nor there though.
Aside from work there's been a flurry of activity at home as well. My parents came to visit Becky and I over the 4th of July weekend; the same weekend Randy moved out to be closer to his new job in New Jersey. Becky and I converted his room into a library after Becky painstakingly entered all of our books into library software we bought on sale at Borders some time ago. The same weekend I finally got around to getting the desktop running with Linux (Mint 5.1) and for the most part playing with that has been my focus this week (to whatever end, I'm writing this entry on my laptop).
Caching has been spotty; I've be redoing some of the work I did on the kitten caches. One of the parks I was going to use got hide-sniped (someone else hid a cache in the park before I did) but I have a few ideas for alternate locations that should work. In the meantime, outings have slowed since CAM. I'm taking my time to reach 1000 since I've made a promise with myself (that I know I'll end up braking) that I'm going to finish the Nightmare series before I go beyond 1K. With under 150 finds left to do and none of the hides prepared I honestly doubt that'll happen but having a deadline gets me to do at least a little work.
More later (after the medicine wears off or the itching stops whichever comes last).
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