More fun with conspiracies

Okay — this is one of the most truly ridiculous, bizarre, and contrived conspiracy theory links I’ve seen yet — and I had to share it.

So — here we have conclusive evidence that the US knew about the 9-11 attacks not just weeks or months, but years before they happened — there are hidden pictures of both the Pentagon and World Trade Center attacks hidden on the new $20 bill!

Music, books and other real-world fun

Back in the summer of 1991, right after I graduated high school, I took a trip to Germany with the Bartlett High School German Club. While there, I was browsing through a music store and stumbled across a band that sounded interesting — Poems for Laila. I picked up two of their albums, Another Poem for the 20th Century and La Fillette Triste.

Unfortunately, over the years, tapes die — especially well-listened to tapes, as these definitely were. I’d never been able to track down any PfL albums over here in the states, and the times I’d looked into trying to get them as imports, it had either been more expensive than I’d wanted to try, or I hadn’t had a credit card available. This week, however, I stumbled across AudioGalaxy (one of the modern Napster alternatives), and have spent the past day downloading PfL .mp3’s like a madman. Not only have I been able to regain both of the albums I used to own, but I’ve also got the entirety of two more albums (Katamandu and I Shot the Moon), plus much of a few other albums that they’ve released since then. It’s great to finally be able to hear this band again — wonderful, beautiful music. So I’ve been cheezing over that.

I also picked up my next book to read — a compendium of the entire Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis. I haven’t read these in ages, and am greatly looking forward to diving back into them again. Should be quite cool.

That’s really about it for now, I suppose. Tomorrow starts the work week again — what fun!

Woohoo?

The Complete Chronicles of Narnia

Well, I just finished all seven books of Narnia. I hadn’t read these in many, many years, and at some point C.S. Lewis decided that he’d rather have the books presented in their chronological order (according to events in Narnia) rather than the order they were written in, so it was in many ways an almost entirely new experience for me.

Incidentally, the preferred order of the books is as follows: The Magician’s Nephew, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, The Horse and his Boy, Prince Caspian, The Voyage of the ‘Dawn Treader’, The Silver Chair, and The Last Battle.

I had a blast reading these again — though it was a far different experience from when I did when I was younger. I really had no idea there was such strong Christian symbology running throughout the series! It doesn’t really surprise me, as I’m somewhat familiar with some of C.S. Lewis’ other work, it was just something that I hadn’t caught on to when I first read the books. At this point, though TLtWatW is the one that is most known, I think that either THahB or TLB are my favorites in the series — THahB mostly because of its somewhat different take on Aslan, and TLB for coming up with not just a wonderfully fitting end to the entire series, but for its depiction of Aslan’s country and what happens after the end of everything.

Wonderful stuff, and well worth re-reading after all these years.

Why blog?

Some days I sit back and wonder just why I do this. My site doesn’t get a whole lot of traffic — primarily just my folks and a few friends who stop by from time to time when they remember. And, admittedly, much of what I write probably wouldn’t be of any real interest to the world in general. Bits and pieces of my life, what I’m doing, what’s going on. Heck, I don’t even get personal enough most of the time to make for any real good drama!

I found the following quote over on Peach’s site after she left a comment to one of my posts, and it seemed to sum up fairly accurately why I keep banging away at this — because, whether or not it’s seen all that often…it’s fun.

I am very pleased with my (o.k. and yours too) blogger. I feel like I have fallen down the rabbit hole; just falling and falling in a blissful state, sans the drugs. I love IT! It is peering through my own looking glass at my own ego and my written word. Whether you are an amatuer or a professional; whether you are an exquisite artiste or you stink, it makes no difference. Most people who create at some time or another, have a strong sense of who they are in the images they create. Mediocrity is the scare word for us. Your word or my word, we all checked off ‘public’ for a reason. We would like to be read and responded to.

Sometimes, though, I feel that I shouldn’t be ‘published’ unless I am very, very good. And then again, who cares? It’s my Journal and if you want to read it, be my guest.

Ack

Oops — I just upgraded my blog software to the newest version, and in the process nuked the hack I had that inserted smileys into posts. Hence, my Spider-Man post isn’t displaying the stars at the moment. Grr. I’ll fix it tomorrow….

Spider-Man

I told you I’d get around to this. ;)

In brief — it rocked. There are a select few movies that were a successful translation from the comic book medium to the silver screen (Superman, Batman, and X-Men — all IMHO, of course), and Spider-Man just rocketed straight to the top of that list.

Plot — well, okay, it’s a summertime comic book movie, but for what it was, it worked quite well. Cast — spot-on. Effects — a bit shakey here and there, but overall quite impressive. Directing — Sam Raimi kicks much booty.

Read more

Ugh

In brief — I saw Spiderman, it rocked. More later. I’m currently battling off a really nasty flu bug…hence why no updates for a few days, and only this really short note right now before I curl up in bed.

I’ll get more up when being vertical doesn’t seem like such a bad idea. ;)