The Blog With No Name

The 250-minute extended version of “The Return of the King” comes out on December 14th. Woot! I know what our family is getting for Christmas…

I dreamed the other night that Prince Harry died during an eye operation. WTF?

I took a web quiz today that told me I would go to the Fifth Level of Hell, filled with other “wrathful and gloomy” people. Hm.

I started Kim Stanley Robinson’s latest novel yesterday, “Forty Signs of Rain,” set in the near-future and dealing with some impending disastrous climate change (I see on Amazon that it’s the first of a trilogy, didn’t know that…). It is set mainly in Washington, D.C., at at one point fairly early on there is sort of a laundry list of agencies and organizations dealing with climate change. One of them was START! Where I used to work! How cool! I’m in a Kim Stanley Robinson novel (sort of) !!!

I just finished (*** FINALLY ***) “A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East ,” by David Fromkin. My reaction in 25 words or fewer: it’s a miracle the middle east isn’t more messed up than it is. A further reaction: the world would have been a better place if people had just listened to Winston Churchill. All Winston, all the time.

Seriously, though, it’s no wonder that the place is so messed up. It appears that from the turn of the century until the mid-twenties, the only thing that could definitely disqualify a British politician or military leader from dictating Mideast policy was actually KNOWING something about the region. Wilful ignorance, smug WASP superiority, anti-Semitism, and belief in the weirdest conspiracy theories were the rule of the day. The lines on the map in the Middle East today are essentially the result of the British trying to figure out what would piss off the French the most, and keep the Russians away from India. Mind-boggling.

Anyway, it was a good read. I still like “Lawrence of Arabia,” though it appears to be a work of total fiction.

…you heard the words, “Roman Catholic diocese….” on the news, and the next words WEREN’T about child sex abuse?

Just curious.

We saw “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow!” on Sunday (there isn’t an exclamation mark in the title, but there SHOULD be). The older child was initially unenthusiastic, but warmed to it when she saw the robots. WHAT a cool movie. Angelina Jolie was even tolerable (what was with that accent, though…). Needless to say, the younger child loved it. Their father thought it was cheesy. Yeah, so? SO WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR, GO SEE IT!

I recently (last night, as a matter of fact) moved from the category of people who find potato baloney to be uninteresting, to the category of people who find potato baloney utterly disgusting, and in fact rather nauseating.

Our church had a Scandinavian dinner last night. My cousin (Swedish Studies major, fluent in Swedish, works as a Swedish genealogy researcher) sat down beside me with a plate full of that stuff, and I just about hurled from the stench of it. I’d rather eat lutefisk!

Well, anyway. I still like cardboard bread and salmon, that’s got to count for something!

We went to see “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” at the IMAX!!! It was tremendous. Better yet, as we entered the lobby, the first thing we saw was a table covered with HP books and books-on-CD – courtesy of the local library – and a box with cards in it. Reach in, pull out a card, and if it says “You Win a Harry Potter Prize!” you’ve, well, won a Harry Potter prize. What are the odds, but all three kids with me got a prize! The little girl accompanying us got the first HP book, which she hasn’t read yet (hey, she’s only seven…), the daughter got (gasp) The Goblet of Fire, unabridged, on **** 17 CDs **** ($70 at Borders!!!), and the boy picked out a little red flashlight. Go figure.
Continue Reading »

…were a hit! Once she realized that she knew her teacher already (from Vacation Bible School at my place of employment), and LOVED her, it was a go. Yay!

http://patriotboy.blogspot.com/