| home
| archives
| bio | stories
| poetry |
links | guestbook
| message board December 2005
... and another year bites the dust. Posted at 2:50 AM
Somehow I'm fighting a cold again. I don't know where it came from (as I haven't been out of the house much and the weather has been oddly warm (40's). Still, my sinuses are playing games, and while I've been keeping things at bay with trying to get full nights of sleep and with taking Cold-Eeze lozenges, it's still bothersome. So far I'm avoiding a runny nose, sore throat, or upset stomach, but I am having mild headaches, occasional coughing, and today's treat was an effect of my voice - not full laryngitis but definitely a noticeable thing. So mostly this has been annoying more than anything else, but I'd be pleased not to have the annoyance either. I still had a good day, though, since I joined Mark and Steve at Steffen's for some gaming. Steve was running late and Mark had to leave early, so our night was a bit shorter than usual, but we chatted and had fun and did get a good bit of gaming in (although it was disappointing to have to quit in the middle of a pitched battle against a swarm of monstrous, huge spiders). My spinach dip and banana bread were big hits as well, so that was a plus. I wasn't even alone with my annoying cold/sinus problems as everyone seems to have something of the same sort troubling them. Hopefully when we get together next week we'll all be feeling better. I know that I'm already 'sick' of being sick.
Okay. I gave Santa a couple of extra days to deliver my new boyfriend, but now I'm feeling disillusioned. I was a good boy overall last year - honest! Why wouldn't Santa come through for me? It makes me wonder if everything I've ever been told is a lie. [For the record, there are many reasons for me to expect that everything I've ever been told were lies.] Posted at 12:52 AM
Today's lesson concerns hair.
So yes, I got my haircut today. It was not one of my better experiences, but fortunately I was calm and just got out of there before she whacked off every last follicle. I spent time in the bathroom once I got back to the house, trying to make some corrections here and there, and it looks okay, but I'll have to wait a couple of weeks at least before I can really have it 'right'. Having said all of that, it's not a horrible haircut. In fact, having just transformed from being an English sheepdog I look notably better if simply because you can see my face and because my long, wild hair no longer whips all around in the lightest breeze. I was in fact planning on my hair being quite a bit shorter, but it's exceptionally short now, a good bit shorter than I would have wanted, and it's not quite matched on both sides. I've made enough adjustments that I don't think anybody but me will probably notice the imbalances (at least not now, since I did my own touch-up work). We'll see, though. You really can never predict what people will and won't notice. So anyhow, I had a long overdue haircut today. Four full months have passed since my last cut, if you can imagine, so even with the imperfections, it feels like a nice change. On a much more positive note, for those who might be curious after yesterday's Journal entry, the chili rocks! Yum! I have once again created a culinary delight. Tomorrow I plan on making spinach dip and banana bread to take to the guys for the next gaming session on Friday (although the spinach dip and banana bread will be much less my own recipe than the chili (although I do have my own little details that I do differently that should make both items even better). What the hell is it with me and making food lately? Posted at 12:12 AM
Yum! I spent a few hours fixing and combining all sorts of ingredients for my super-thick five-alarm chili. I haven't made it in almost three years, but I've been craving it for a while and finally decided there was no time like the present. So yesterday I hit the grocery and got the ingredients I didn't have, and today I got busy in the kitchen. Of course I have no idea how it tastes yet. That probably sounds weird, but my chili is a little harsh right after I make it (the Cayenne pepper and chili powder and garlic are pretty powerful and even almost gritty, even after the initial simmering. After twenty-four hours and a reheat, though, look out! My five-alarm chili rocks once all of the flavors have had a chance to blend and meld, and similarly, after twenty-four hours, the texture is smooth and thick (in fact the masa flour sets up even more after a full day, so much so that, between the flour-thickened sauce and the ground turkey and the chili beans and kidney beans and onions, it's just so packed full and solid that a spoon will always stand straight up in it and nev er move. Once you add a bit of sour cream and some shredded Colby/Jack cheese, let me tell you ... you'll be begging for more. So now I'm all excited about dinner tomorrow. Super-thick, super-hot, super-yummy chili fixed just the way I like it! Mmm-mmm-mmm! Posted at 12:01 AM
Hee hee hee!!! I just finished watching the new episode of the new Doctor Who season. The Christmas Invasion, as the episode is entitled, was fantastic - fast-paced, unpredictable, exciting, and imaginative ... and thoroughly true to everything in the Doctor Who universe. The new Doctor, David Tennant, is already shaping up to be an almost swashbuckling version of the Timelord (and he's cute, too (you may remember him as Barty Crouch, Jr. in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire)). The new season promises to be phenomenal as well. The fact that the Cybermen will be back is kick-ass in itself, but to also have a reappearance by Sarah Jane Smith and K-9 - Simply glorious! I love Doctor Who. I've literally been giddy during the entire last hour and a half, from the first moments of the story, with a huge rush after the first few minutes as the theme song and title sequence played (in blasting surround sound stereo all around me), and throughout the show until the very last minute. Even during the commercials I was so wired that I was practically jumping up and down. And there's nothing else that does that for me anymore, nothing. Sure, there was a time when more than just Doctor Who could give me that kind of uncontainable energy, but that's quite a while in the past. In fact when I first saw the new Doctor Who last year, after it had been on hiatus for almost twenty years, I was amazed to have that same excitement I've felt tonight. I hadn't felt that for anything in years, and I was shocked. I'd almost come to believe that I didn't have it in me anymore. The surprise was pleasant to be sure. I've lived to see these new episodes of Doctor Who, and when the first season finished in the fall I thought I wouldn't be able to stand it, having to wait until Christmas for a new episode. I made it, though, and the wait was well worth it. when I was a kid I watched Doctor Who on PBS. I went to extreme measures to videotape every episode that was broadcast (some episodes from the '60s have never been rebroadcast because some or all of the episodes for a given story were lost or accidentally destroyed). Taping was a big deal because videotaping was, for the most part, still sort of a new thing. When I first started watching Doctor Who I didn't know anybody that had a VCR. Soon, my friend Rob, who introduced me to Doctor Who and loved it just about as much as me, had a VCR - or at least his dad did. So I spent what little money I had to buy video tapes and had Rob tape the episodes for me, even though I had no place to play them. A few years later, when my parents had decided to buy a VCR, I still had Rob recording shows because my parents didn't want me using their VCR (partly because they thought that Doctor Who was stupid but moreso because they just didn't like me using anything they had (just like how I pretty much never got to use the pool we had in our own back yard)). Rob taped a lot of episodes for me, but there are over twenty years of stories, some just an hour long (three episodes with no commercials) and some a full three hours of episodes to tell one story. And there are a lot of stories. After I was in college a couple of years and working and supporting myself, I bought a full component video and stereo system with an excellent VCR, and I spent a lot of time trying to record the few episodes that I was missing here and there from my whole collection. I got to where I finally had every story every broadcast on PBS (which was every story that was still intact). I still have most of those tapes as we speak, even including a new set of tapes for the new stories that are being produced now, but I'm missing about a dozen stories that are on tapes that Simon "borrowed" and never returned to me before he disappeared from my life without a trace. So those are, regrettably, pretty much gone for good, and since PBS and even the SciFi channel don't syndicate Doctor Who anymore (or at least it's been at least ten years since SciFi ran them and longer by another decade for PBS), I haven't been able to ever replace those missing stories. Which sucks, because I did have the whole set at one time. Anyhow, Doctor Who was magical for me as a kid. It opened up my imagination even more than anything else and the character of the Doctor impressed me as a role model for how to treat true friends and how to care for people who need your help, even when they don't know it. My parents, of course, as was the case with everything I was interested in (Lord of the Rings, D&D, classical music, Arthurian legend, drawing, ...), thought that Doctor Who was stupid, unintelligent, childish, a waste of my time, and an unhealthy obsession of mine. I'm sure that if I'd spent a similar amount of time finding ways to get drunk, impregnate busty girls, or flatten people in some violent sport - then and only then my parents would have thought that I was normal and would have liked my passtimes. So needless to say, they weren't even interested in watching a single episode of Doctor Who to see why I was so interested, and like everything else it just showed me how completely uninterested my parents were in anything in my life. BUT - despite my parents objections, I loved Doctor Who and watched the show over and over again, to the point that I knew entire scripts for entire seasons by heart. It's not that I was watching over and over again in a given week, but watching the show on PBS once a week for a dozen years eventually sticks in your mind, particularly when it's something that you love to watch and really enjoy, admire even. So tonight was excellent - simply excellent. I wish this happened more often. But at least I know that more new episodes are on the way again. And that's so cool. Posted at 10:15 PM
Of course that may have to do with the fact that the temperature got up to 37 Fahrenheit and it has been drizzling all day, the combination of which has been melting quite a bit of the snow. There's still a layer of snow on the ground, even though it's a much thinner layer than yesterday or the days before, so it is still a white Christmas, but it certainly feels a bit odd for there to be rain falling on Christmas Day and not light flakes of snow. So it's Christmas Day. Happy Holidays to you (and Happy Hanukah, if you're of the Jewish persuasion. Happy Yule to all of you Wiccans, and Festive Saturnalia to any of you Romanesque Pagans.). I've spent the day alone at the house, enjoying a very relaxed day, but I must admit that I've been a bit bored. The television programming today has really been abysmal (and considering how many cable channel,s I have to choose from, that's truly a sad statement). I had a nice conversation with my grandma, my sister, my mom, and my niece and nephew. They're all having quite a nice celebration at my sister's place, and the kids were very excited about their gifts. Like I say, the call way pleasant, but I had an even better time on the calls I made to James, who has moved to North Dakota since the last time I talked to him in Arizona. I spoke with James in the morning and then called back for a longer talk late in the afternoon. We caught each other up on what had been going on in our lives and reminisced. I realized as we spoke that I had gone far too long since the last time I had called James, months and months ago, so I made up for lost time and we talked for quite a while. James is a good friend, and while I feel he is often too hard on himself, I enjoy hearing what he has to say. So my call to him was very rewarding, and in a way that was my Christmas present. So it's been a simple day, nothing special or anything. I'm bored again now that it's been a while since my phone call ended, but the selection of TV shows still sucks, so I'm pretty much just screwed for the rest of the night. I may just pull out a book and read the night away. That might be rather nice actually. Merry Merry. Posted at 9:15 PM
Season of miracles my ass. Posted at 12:08 AM
Posted at 2:39 AM
A verdict has finally been rendered about the 11 kids who were kept in small cages at the home where they were adopted. Finally we have a judge ruling that this was child abuse. Duh. It should never have taken this long, but at least it's been proven in a court of law. Now the kids will have a chance to find homes with people that care about them and will properly care for them. The thing that drives me crazy is that the 'parents', and I use the term loosely, still haven't been charged with anything. Yes, they will lose the kids (and the thousands of dollars per month that were provided by the state for their welfare), but they need to be charged with child abuse or something. Heck, people who verbally abuse their kids get more flack than this (not that I support verbal abuse either). i'll be waiting to see the next phase, which specifically takes care of relocating the kids, but I'll be watching closely to see if these 'parents' get what they deserve. They'd better be held accountable.
Posted at 10:58 PM
Well, they did it. I suppose I should have known they would, but I was hoping that the Democrats and simple decency would have won out. I guess that was naive of me. The Republican-controlled Congress rarely is stopped by the Democrats and never has a shred of decency or compassion. The big issue today os the changes to the college loan system. Now I'm not discounting all of the other "budget-cutting" that the Republicans passed through - that stuff is just as heinous and just as ridiculous considering these things are cut before completely unnecessary pork like the Alaskan 'Bridge to Nowhere' and such things that are wastes of billions of taxpayer dollars in any situation. College loans took the brunt of the cuts, though, and the prospects aren't good. Loans were getting spread thin before as colleges were trying to increase enrollment without increasing federally funded financial aid, thus meaning that each recipient was given less and less financial aid. This all happened at the same time as cuts to state funding to colleges which almost universally has resulted in skyrocketing tuition hikes. The result of all of this was that students pretty much were forced to take more and more student loans to cover costs, even though the total amount of loans they could take was not increased. With this new change in student loans, one big effect occurs - loans will be even harder to come by and will cost even more to students. That means that the people who really need loans to go to college at all either won't get them at all or won't get enough to cover their costs, again meaning they won't be able to attend. For those who do attend, interest rates will be higher, much higher, and considering that students have been seen struggling over the past decade with paying higher-than-ever student loan debts, often paying for decades more after they have left college - considering that, the situation will be even worse, and students who have to get financial aid should probably expect that they will be paying back their student loan debt for the better part of their adult lives, possibly even up to the time they retire. That's just fucking ridiculous. What's happening is an assault by the Republicans upon the poor and the middle class. The Wealthy, who are the prime supporters of the Republicans (and who are the typically Republican politicians themselves) - the wealthy want to keep all of the money and power for themselves, and they are now trying to keep generations of Americans from ever transcending their classes and becoming wealthy themselves. Sounds like I'm some conspiracy-theory nut job, right? Well maybe I am. I don't think so, though. If there's another explanation for the actions of the Republicans, I'd love to hear it. They shoot down universal health care; they try to dismantle and end Welfare and Medicare and Social Security; they offer to help Katrina victims rebuild but give all of the money to major corporations through no-bid contracts; they have made bankruptcy almost impossible for the common man but incredibly easy and sweeping for the rich and for corporations; they are anti-union; they refuse to raise the minimum wage, even after almost a decade; they want to eliminate overtime pay, leaving workers at the same wage for twice as many hours of work (or more); they want to remove worker safety programs like Workers' Compensation; they have changed tax laws so that the wealthy do not pay as much by percent of income as the poor; they have made numerous tax refunds and tax breaks that favor the rich; they send poor and middle class kids to war while their sons and daughters reap profits in Haliburton or similar no-bid contract companies; they have made it so that the rich can get away with murder or certainly embezzlement with only a slap on the wrist, no jail time, and no fines or restitution, even when hundreds of thousands of their employees and investors lose their entire lifes' savings because of their actions; heck, they even take away your basic freedoms, knowing that the wealthy can defend against a threat to their freedoms but those without such finances cannot. I could go on. The collection is daunting, and it suggests a concerted effort to elevate the wealthy at the permanent expense of everyone else. Like I said, I'd love to hear another explanation. Here's the article about the changes in college loans:
Damn loneliness. This time of year sucks. Posted at 11:59 PM
I didn't mention it in yesterday's Journal entry, but even as much as I enjoyed the movie, it was preceded by something that excited and interested me even more. Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom will be returning in June with a new Pirates of the Caribbean movie, this one subtitled Dead Man's Chest. In fact not only Depp and Bloom will be back, but most of the entire cast from the previous Pirates of the Caribbean movie. It looks quite intriguing and full of fun, just like before. I can't wait. Posted at 12:57 AM
Another good day, today. Who'd have guessed I could have two in a week's time? Much like Wednesday, I went to Toledo and caught a movie matinee and then joined Steve and Mark at Steffen's house for some Dungeons & Dragons. The gaming went incredibly well today. We accomplished more today than we ever have in a single session, seeing our characters travel more than two hundred miles, exploring unknown areas, and managing to defeat both a Dire Wolf and a Water Elemental, both seriously powerful creatures, particularly for our group of third level characters. We used an amazin g combination of smart tactics, cautious attacks, and a lot of lucky dice rolls to succeed. It was a great day for our characters. Talking with the guys, around the game, was fun as well, and we joked and teased and had fun. Steffen fixed a vegetable lasagna today for us to eat and it was quite yummy. Really, today would have been incredibly enjoyable just with the night of gaming alone. Before the game, however, I watched The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe at the theatre. I feel spoiled by watching not just one but two movies in the theatre in such a short time. In recent years I've som etimes only spent the money to see two movies in a given year, let alone within a given week. My money was well spent, though. The movie simply had to be seen on the big screen, and just about everything about it was wonderful. Narnia was very well brought to life. The movie is very true to the books. Even though the movie expands upon the story the slightest bit and adds a great deal of detail, nothing ever seems untrue to Lewis' story. The imagery is also masterfully done. The costuming and CGI work was amazing and sweeping. I must say, though, that a few of my complaints revolve around the visuals. For one thing, everybody is simply too clean. A silly comment, maybe, but if you think about it, people traveling across the world, engaged in war, get dirty. In fact since much of the war's participants are animals and mythical creatures it almost seems expected that they'll be a little dirty, particularly the bad guys. Instead ev eryone is well-groomed and sparkling. TO an extent I suppose that plays well to the very fantasy-world nature of Narnia, so perhaps its a silly complaint to have. I just felt like some aspects of realism were lost by things being too clean. Another problem I had was Tilda Swindon. Her acting was fine - great even, and she brought the White Witch to life very well. It was her costuming that bothered me. Her dresses, her hairstyling, and her makeup made her look stiff and fake - something ironic considering creatures that don't even exist were made in CGI to seem incredibly real and with very realistic movement and fur/costumes. I realize that the White Witch is meant to seem as icy and frozen as the winter world she attempts to dominate, but it was a bit overemphasized for me and made her seem cartoonish. My only other complaint is a couple CGI screens that could have been done better considering how well everything else was done. The screen where the White WItch rides out with Edmund on her sleigh to find the other children is all CGI and is done very poorly, looking almost like a cartoon. Other CGI work was done so flawlessly that I simply have no idea why this was left so unrefined, but it was there. At least it was short. Not long after that, as the Beavers are leading the children to Aslan and crossing over a rock bridge, there's a close-up on the faces of the three children, and they are so obviously overlayed on a green-screen provided background that it's ridiculous. Again, I have no idea why this was not cleaned up as well as almost all of the rest of the film, but it wasn't. None of these things ruined the movie for me, not in the least, but they were all little detractions that held the movie back from being perfect. I do mean perfect as well. The whole magic and wonder of Lewis' book was made tangible in this movie, and that says quite a lot. There have been a number of complaints that Lewis' allusions to Christianity are blatant and almost beat you over the head. I'll admit that they're there, but I don't think they beat you over the head - certainly not any more than the book. As far as I'm concerned, the movie/book simply makes allegories that support ideas of a fight against good and evil. Like much of Western literature, those allegories are Biblically based. I could live with that because the concepts of the story are otherwise so wonderful, and the execution so magnificent that the whole movie was spectacular. I do wonder if Disney will go forward and make movies of the other books (there are seven total, you know). The fact that they aren't in production now could be problematic since the children in the book are present in other books, and delays in production could mean that the young actors and actresses who did so well in this movie might age too noticeably by the time future movies were made. I guess we'll just have to see how it goes. I'd love to see more, but this was a treat in itself. An excellent movie and an excellent gaming session. A wonderful day, really, and probably the best holiday present I could get.
It's certainly no surprise to me that Fuehrer Bush has disregarded the law and the Bill of Rights of the Constitution of the United States, but apparently many people are shocked. Bush's response, as should by now be expected, is that he did nothing wrong and will continue to do the same thing over and over again. He is blind, arrogant, and undeniably dangerous, and really people ... just impeach the man. He's done more than enough now to justify impeachment. Hell, if you can try to impeach a guy for a blowjob, you can certainly impeach Bush for all that he's done. In fact in my opinion Bush has far outpaced Nixon for scandal and impeachable offenses. Unlike Nixon, Bush will never resign, even if every member of his party tells him to do so. Just like his role-model, Hitler, Bush will stand firm until the bitter end, defying opponents even in his own party, silencing them with threats and with derision (such as this audacious bullshit about threatening national security), and defiantly proclaiming his destiny to rule his people, regardless of what they claim to want (after all, that's how totalitarianism works, don't you know). If the Republicans have any sense whatsoever, they will abandon Bush and support his impeachment. I hate the idea of Cheney as President, but at least he'd be mo0re accountable that way. Whatever it takes, Bush simply must go.
Posted at 11:06 PM
This fucking Buckeye Express cable internet provider is pissing me off like you wouldn't believe. It's only been maybe three months since I switched from DSL, and while I like the lower costs, the fact that the data stream just stops for hours at a time is maddening. I can be surfing the net during the afternoon and then two hours later, just planning to quickly check the weather or something, I find the system dead in the water, unable to give me any connection at all. I don't mean like a slowdown, either. I mean absolutely no signal whatsoever. Now I'll admit that I accept there will be moments of downtime, maybe even more than normal during a time like now, when people are doing online holiday shopping in vast masses, but still there is no excuse for the kind of down time we're talking about. I haven't been able to post a Journal entry on time any of the past four days (five counting today), and I haven't been able to access anything I want or need to view. It's pissing me off, I tell you. Honestly, it's just simply unacceptable. I never had these kinds of problems with DSL. Sure, I had downtime, but only on rare occasions and never as consistently as I'm facing right now. In fact I had less downtime in the two years I was on DSL than I've had in the last three or four days using cable internet. I don't see how anyone can come up with an excuse for this, although I'm sure they'll try with every call I make to bitch about this completely useless service. The fact that all I can really do is bitch impotently or switch back to DSL is pointless and frustrating. Bitching sadly won't solve anything, and while I could switch back to DSL at any time, I just don't want to go through the hassle of switching all over again. Being stuck like this infuriates me even more than the downtime itself. All I know is that Buckeye Cablevision had better not have this problem in 2006 or I won't hesitate to switch back to DSL for sure. Posted at 9:43 PM
No fair! I used the snow blower for the first time this year (the snow was deep and heavy enough to merit it for once) and the snow just kept falling and falling, all day long. None of that is a problem, really. The problem was that the temperatures were just above freezing most of the day, prompting the snow to keep falling and accumulating but also to melt a bit. If it had melted more or melted less it wouldn't have mattered, but it melted only enough so that it didn't dissipate but melded all of the snow into a slush which then froze solid as the temperatures dropped after the sun went down. Now I have a solid, although not thick, sheet of ice covering just about the whole of my driveway and sidewalks, and the temperatures won't get high enough to do a whole lot tomorrow. Hopefully some well-placed ice-melt salt will do the trick, but it all depends upon how the temperature cooperates. I might just melt it only enough that it freezes all over again, although hopefully that won't be the case. I had to practically carry my grandma out to the car today so that we could run errands, the ice was so prevalent. I don't want that sort of thing to be an issue, ever. All it would take is one fall and my grandma could be in bad shape, so I'm very conscious of icy conditions here and elsewhere. I'm certainly not going to have it here if I can help it, that's for sure, but it's maddening to have the ice from up even after having spent hours of time shoveling snow earlier in the day.
Well, today was a nice day of rest and entertainment. I got back not long ago from Toledo and a visit with Steve, Mark, and Steffen, where we gamed a bit and made a lot of progress, killing a giant troll without too much difficulty (although there were some very dangerous, life-threatening moments in there). More than the game, we talked and joked and ate dinner together. It was quite nice; just the atmosphere I needed to relax and let the tension move out of my shoulders (and I mean this in both the figurative and literal senses). Possibly just as enjoyable was my time before joining the guys at Steffen's. I went to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire at the matinee (which is priced outrageously, by the way). I wanted to see this movie while it was still on the big screen because I knew that it would be a different experience than when I see it later on the TV (or video). I was right. The full screen experience was magnificent, really pulling you into the movie and really breathtaking in scope. The movie was indeed wonderful visually, and since I'd loved the book, I knew I'd love the movie. The story is, mostly, still there, and the intrigue and danger are very much there. I'll even give a lot of credit to this movie for making everything seem much more busy and full of people in the wizarding world than the previous movies. This is sort of covered in the book for Goblet of Fire, making it clear that the wizarding world is quite huge and full of people, but this movie does an even better job of making this clear. It's different than the first three movies/books, where Hogwarts and the Weasleys and Harry with the Dursleys all seem very insulated and isolated from each other. This added complexity is needed, I think, to show the scope of everything that's going on, but the added bonus is that the hustle and bustle of all of these extra people makes things, from the earliest parts of the movie, seem much more tense and frenzied, and that fits the mood of this and future parts of the series. Unfortunately there are some serious problems with the movie - not problems that make the movie bad or that were poorly executed. The problems are what's missing. I'd read reviews to this effect, and I'd wondered how serious of a problem they might be. To a casual observer there wouldn't be a problem, in fact. If you hadn't read the book then you wouldn't realize that there were missing parts - MANY missing parts - HUGE missing parts. I read an interview with the director that said he was told initially that he'd have to split the book into two movies to include everything , but he didn't want to do that. He looked at the story and went for the core plot-line, the heart of the book, and made that. And that's fine,for what it is. The problem is that the movie misses out on including some very excellent minor plot-lines and characterizations. The biggest problem, however, will be for whoever makes the remaining films. Many of these minor plot-lines from Goblet of Fire develop into much bigger things in the later books, and by leaving them out of this movie entirely, the director is forcing each of the next movies to cover material that should already have been covered, and in some cases it will be quite difficult to do flashback or anything else to make those connections. So this, in mind, is a huge set of problems - maybe not for this specific movie in itself, but certainly for this movie franchise. The determination to keep this as one movie also hurt some parts of the movie as it stands. Characterization definitely suffered by not spending a little time, as the book did, covering some background material and simple events. In fact the Yule Ball and the teen angst of choosing dates and then dancing in public, were given far less time and consideration than the book, and the whole situation suffered as a result. Also, the pervasive aura of mistrust about Harry by his fellow students, which in the book was more daunting for Harry than the dangerous events of the Tri-Wizard Tournament, were, while not exactly down-played, certainly were not developed to show that they had a very great effect upon Harry in the movie. I guess to me the bottom line was that at two hours and forty minutes, the movie could already have been split into two separate movies based upon length. If you added another half hour to hour on each movie for a total of an extra hour or two combined, then nothing would have had to be cut out, and the book would have been much more fully realized. Sadly that wasn't the way it worked, and the movie does suffer in certain ways because of that. Having said all of this, I did love the movie, and I had a great time. Hopefully the director currently working on Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the next movie, will take these problems into consideration and make two films to tell the one story fully. We'll have to just wait and see, I guess. In the meantime, I'll be thinking of this movie for a while. It was quite enjoyable (and the Weasley twins have gotten quite nice to look at, being quite hot at age 17, truth be told). If I can see Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe on the big screen before the end of the year, that would be excellent.
I've said it before and I will reiterate: it's a war that's been begun, with the sides being gays and lesbians and their supporters against conservatives, the religious right, and ex-gays. The Conservatives and ex-gays want people to believe that Hate Crimes laws make homosexuals more valuable than other people. I'm still not sure how they figure that, really, however I do know that gay people, just like other minorities, are often targeted by others because of their difference (the Conservative, right-wing, religious zealots (including the ex-gays) provide constant examples of how they single out gay people for persecution). The ex-gays in this article might have a valid argument if they were equally as threatened by violence statistically as gay people. Someone should show them what it's like.
Posted at 11:57 PM
I love Mark Morford so much. He can always make me smile.
Posted at 10:47 PM
My grandmother flies out to stay with my sister on Saturday. She'll be gone for three weeks. Hallelujah. I love my grandma, but the woman has gotten on my last nerve. In fact she got on my last nerve about five months ago and has been jumping up and down on it every day since. Normally my grandma would visit my mom for four or five weeks in Florida during the fall, like around October, but my mom didn't do that this year. In the past, those few weeks with my grandma away have been just the right amount of time to relax, do things I need done for me, run my own schedule (staying up as late as I want or getting up as early or late as I want), and having time to mentally and emotionally recuperate. By the time she gets back I'm usually much better able to cope with her nagging and obsessing about not throwing away plastic bags and such. It takes a lot of energy to deal with crazy people and the very elderly, and without a break I just can't do it. So as much as I love her, I can't wait for Saturday to get here so she'll be the hell out of here. Sadly, the mere three weeks she will be away is not going to be remotely enough, ... but it'll be better than nothing. I just wish it was Saturday already. Posted at 9:33 PM
Fuck this. I hate life; I hate bullshit; I hate everything right now. I refuse to rewrite everything I had typed into Dreamweaver over the past half hour because surely it will just vanish on me again. FUCK IT!!! Like I need even the slightest bit more fucked up shit in my fucked up, miserable life. Posted at 11:29 PM
The ugliness of snow is here: the blowy, flaky stuff that floats right back to covering the area I just shoveled; the slippery, slidy stuff that makes my car act as though it defies all laws of friction; the scummy, grungy stuff that collects everywhere even in a small town like this (whereas in the country the vast majority of snow remains untouched and beautifully white). I don't mind the cold; I don't mind the wind; I don't mind the shorter days. Heck, I wouldn't even mind the snow if it only fell on the ground and not any pavement. In fact I love the beauty of snow on the ground. But snow on the sidewalk, driveway, street, and parking lot are a pain in the ass, turning slushy, grimy, slippery, ugly, and troublesome - and who wants to deal with that? No me, that's for sure. Posted at 12:31 AM
I don't know if it's the cold weather or the early darkness (from Daylight Savings Time) or the holiday blues, or the loneliness, or the depression, or the snow, or the bad stuff happening in the news, or maybe a new cold forming, or what, but I have been tiring very easily the past week. Today, for instance, I was extremely tired after getting back from grocery shopping and putting things away (which, granted, was a four hour process largely due to my grandma making the progress drag on), but even with the frustration of masses of holiday shoppers filling the aisles it doesn't seem to me like the whole process should have taken so much out of me. I had planned, yesterday after returning in the late afternoon and today after returning in the mid-afternoon, to wrap all of the Christmas presents and get things boxed up, but I failed to even get started either time. I simply felt too tired and figured I could just lie down, watch a little TV, and then get to the wrapping after a little bit. Obviously the flaw in that plan was assuming that this lethargy will simply pass. No such luck. Tomorrow I simply must get the presents put together and ready to take to the Post Office so that they'll get out to people in a timely fashion. Maybe it will make a difference if I'm working on that without being out shopping for a few hours or so. Maybe. I certainly hope so. I want to get this stuff done and try to get to any of the myriad of other things that I need to get done. Ugh. Why must I be so tired? It's really not something I like dealing with at all. Posted at 12:00 AM
Conservatives, having such great success denying the Theory of Evolution and pushing Intelligent Design, have now begun another campaign aimed at showing science who's boss. The "Theory" of Gravity (obviously not a proven fact, just a theory) is being replaced by the Blowjob Concept: "the Earth sucks." This challenge to traditional science may catch on much more quickly and with less challenges than Intelligent Design since it makes so much more sense. Posted at 12:02 AM
Shopping would be a lot more fun if you didn't have to spend money to do it. The good news is that my holiday shopping is all done. Still, there's the wrapping and boxing up and shipping to a few places, and that's a major process in itself, but the shopping part, the hardest part really, is done. It took pretty much the whole day, but it's done. Damnit. Posted at 11:47 PM
Reading by candlelight isn't quite as romantic as it sounds. In fact it gives you a headache after a while. The power went out at 8:23 tonight (based on the frozen readout on my stove), and after a quick check of the breaker box I looked around outside. Some houses were completely dark, but others, even some right across the street, had lights working fine. Still, I called the electric company. Apparently their grid/network showed eighteen houses without power, and they were on their way. The automated system I called first, before talking to a live rep, told me the power would be restored by 2:32 AM. Great. Considering the furnace and most everything in the house requires at least some electric, I figured we could be pretty cold by 2:30 (the furnace is gas-fueled but operated by electric components). I gathered up various candles and made sure there was decent light for my grandma and me, and then ... well, it was dead quiet and pretty boring. I grabbed a book I've been reading and read by candlelight for a short while, but I went downstairs when I heard a knock on the door. Our neighbor had stopped by to check on my grandma since she wasn't sure if I was around. My grandma invited her in, and we talked for a while. We talked about a lot of things, notably the power issue. Her husband had heard on his police scanner that police and fire units were finishing up and turning a site over to Ohio Edison (the electric company) that was obviously the root of our power outage. That certainly explained why it was taking so long for the power to be returned. My grandma, who tends to get very chatty when she is nervous or excited, went on and on from topic to topic with our neighbor, keeping her here for almost an hour and a half. Once she finally left I went back to reading my book and my grandma finally got herself ready for bed. It took my grandma until after 11:30 to get ready for bed, and by then she just decided to lay down anyhow (normally she stays up until Midnight or 1 AM). I was still reading when the power returned at about 12:30, and I went around the house to check on things and update various clocks. The house was feeling a little cold, but nothing too bad, but I was certainly glad the electric company beat their 2:30 AM estimate - it might well have been very cold by then. I finished the chapter I was reading after I'd checked over the house. Reading with an actual light bulb was much more comfortable, even if it was less romantic. Ironically, now that the power is back on I'm just about to turn off all of the lights. Funny how that works out. Still, I'm glad to have the power back. I'm far to used to it to go without. Posted Written at 1:02 AM
Why can't I just die now before I get any more hopeless and depressed, before I get any more bitter, before I turn angry and homicidal? Posted at 10:10 PM
I've written often about my beloved friend Ken, and I have a few poems about him on the site, too (Ken, Ashes, Cold, and as the inspiration for My Pet). I still think of Ken all the time, although a lot more of the good feelings and good memories are there now and not just the pain and sorrow of losing him. Ken was truly special, and I would give anything to find someone even remotely close to who he was, but for now I turn to my memories of him. One very happy memory I have of Ken is a movie. Ken liked all sorts of things (baseball, dancing, music, movies), and I have good memories connected to each of his interests. One specific movie stands out, though, as the movie Ken once told me was his favorite. Elvira: Mistress of the Dark is honestly a bad movie. Of course it's meant to be (check out IMDb's reviews). Elvira hosted bad movies on a syndicated TV show throughout much of the '80s and '90s, and she became a cultural icon. Her one-liners were often not very original, but she had a comic timing that was simply perfect. And honestly, she was just funny and fun. Her first movie was no different. It was, in almost all ways, a parody of old B-movies, all with Elvira's one-liners and also full of her trademark sexual innuendo (and her trademark breasts, which were probably her big selling point among straight people, who often never fully appreciate the type of campy antics Elvira did so well). The movie is also very '80s - the music alone is almost comical in that sense. Why would Ken like such a weird movie? Well, it was simply funny as hell. Honestly it is so stupid it's funny, and it never gets old, no matter how many times I watch it. Ken loved goofy humor, slapstick or double-entendre. Of course Ken loved most humor. He was a very light-hearted, fun-loving guy. This movie was his favorite, though, and I've always remembered that. A few days ago, when I had my grandma with me at the mall, shopping for Christmas gifts, I pulled her into the Suncoast Video store to look around. Mostly I was looking for inspiration, because I still have no idea what to get for my nephew, my niece, or for my friend Chris in Korea. Videos and DVDs are certainly a possibility for all three of them, and Suncoast also carries various props and toys for sale as well which also make good possibilities. I wasn't looking closely at the videos as I went along, so it was probably sheer luck (or fate) that that a used copy of Elvira was on the shelf, face forward amid hundreds of spine-out videos. The $5 cost hardly made me pause. Even though I cut out any and all frivolous expenses, $5 for something so full of memories for me was definitely worth it, I thought. And I was right. Tonight, with nothing interesting on TV and with a need to lie back for once and not do two things at once (I almost never watch TV anymore without surfing the net or reading or something else at the same time), I watched my new (used) DVD and laughed at every bad one-liner and sight gag . I laughed and enjoyed it so much, and I thought about Ken and how he would have been sitting right there with me on the couch and laughing out loud, rolling around at some jokes and repeating others back just as they were spoken from the TV. At moments it was just like he was there with me. Maybe he was. It would be nice if he was, because I miss him, and even if I couldn't see him, it would be great if he were just there, sitting next to me, sharing the moment. I need his strength and his hope and his humor, and I do wish he was here. But at least I've got Elvira, and every time I watch that DVD I'll feel just the same as I did tonight, and Ken will live again for me, just barely, and for a few brief moments, everything will be right with the world.
I continue to be astounded by how the Bush administration seems to constantly be running their day-to-day operations based upon Hitler's playbook. As with so many things, Bush and company are following exactly the route Hitler took to total power dominance by their specific party and their titular head himself. In this specific case I am referring to recently revealed facts that Bush has been paying newspaper writers to write stories making U.S. forces seem to be doing better in Iraq. He's also been creating or buying newspapers in the Middle East so that they can be used to tell only what Bush wants to be known. This is far from any sort of democratic method, far from any freedom of the press, and far from "truth, justice and the American way." It is very clearly fact less propaganda meant to supplant the truth in order to manipulate subjugated peoples. WIth this, as so many things, Bush becomes simply more and more dangerous. Somehow this all must be stopped. Somehow.
Posted at 11:50 PM
This damn cold won't go away. Of course the fact that I spent over four hours out in near-freezing temperatures today with snow beginning to fall, all so I could rake leaves for the final city leaf pickup of the year ... that sort of thing surely isn't helping. In fact I end up with the added problem of more aches and stiffness from all of the raking. It's just a never-ending fun-fest around here. On the positive side, I read a great book today, start to finish. My grandma and I tried to do some Christmas shopping yesterday, and while we spent hours and hours looking around the mall, we came up mostly empty-handed. In fact the only actual Christmas present we bought was a book my grandma bought for my nephew, Hunter. It looked good to me and to her, and she decided to buy it after I pushed her a bit. I found the book so intriguing that I pulled it out today and read it through in just a few hours, even though it's about 267 pages long. The book is called Golden & Grey (subtitled: An Unremarkable Boy and a Rather Remarkable Ghost), and while it's a children's book, I just loved it (here's a review of the book). I can't say that this is the best book I've ever read, or even the best children's book I've ever read, but it is quite well done and very enjoyable, and most importantly for me, it was very heartwarming and satisfying. I think part of my problem lately, my problem of being depressed, is that my reading material has been full of conflict without satisfactory resolutions. What that means is that the stories I'm reading are full of characters who are struck with problems that complicate their lives or harm them. This is typical of just about any story, in fact it's been said that without conflict there can be no story, but the problem for me is that very few of these stories are having a happy ending, or even at the least a satisfactory resolution of the conflict. Part of this whole problem is specific to what I read most - online stories where only a new chapter at a time is posted, meaning that conflict almost always arises and is not resolved until the next chapter, which won't be out for a while. I hate to admit that my entire mental state is affected by the stories I read, but the truth is that most stories I read hit me very deeply, connecting with me personally and having a deep impact. That is good in a way because it makes the stories I read even more powerful, but obviously there is a dangerous down side within all of this, too, and that sort of down side is, I think, part of what is affecting me now. Does any of this mean that I'm going to stop reading my stories? Hell no. However, I am going to make an effort to start reading some books that I've had sitting on my shelves for a while, books that I've wanted to read but felt I had too much else to do - books that will no doubt have conflict but which will have solid resolution. Some will even have humor. Reading these other books won't overcome by holiday-season-blues, but they may counter the effects of the conflict-ridden stories I've been reading on the net. Anything is a help, really, so who am I not to at least try? Golden & Grey was a wonderful read, though, and I hope Hunter enjoys it as much as I have. It's Louise Arnold's first book, and it certainly makes me look forward to her next book.
Journal, by Paul Cales, © December 2005
|
December 31, 2005
