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I was born, I'm currently living, and will eventually die. After that I face my judgment, and we'll talk then.

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Friday, December 29, 2006

Christmas Presents

I figured that it was time for the present list, categorized, of course:

BOOKS
C. S. Lewis
Till We Had Faces
The Great Divorce
The Problem With Pain
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Idiot
Notes From Underground

Eragon

MOVIES
Schindler's List
12 Angry Men
King Kong (the original 1933)
ET
Apollo 13
Congo
50 horror classics (includes everything from B cheezies like The Killer Shrews, to silent classics like Metropolis, to cult classics like Night of the Living Dead, as well as really good ones like House on Haunted Hill w/ Vincent Price)
5 Science Fiction Classics on one DVD set (Including the awesome movie Tarantula)
The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe (the super duper 4-disc pack with the deleted scenes added in)
Hotel Rwanda
Clue

OTHER STUFF
(Ok, this stuff isn't exactly comprehensive, but here's what I can think of right now)
Far Side page-a-day calender
Some clothes, like the jacket I'm wearing
Mini DV tapes
Really warm socks
Some really fun pens

I'm sure there was other stuff, but that should be enough for you guys for now

Too-da-loo, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year

Ibid

Monday, December 25, 2006

Holidays

I know its a little late in the day for this, but my day was packed. Maybe tomorrow I'll spill my beans on what I got.

Merry Christmas to all. May Christ's blessings and love descend upon us all.

Happy New Year! May all of our resolutions be kept, and raise us to higher levels of spiritual excellence.

Sunday, December 17, 2006

A story idea

Imagine the world in the not so distant future. Everything is at the paying customer's fingertips. Heck, (not to be crass) even sex has been thrown out for a more personal thing. The person can truly live in solitude, away from everyone if he so choses, not even rising from his super automatic comfy chair, save for one thing: welcoming the occasional poor fool who does not have the luxury of you through your door. Sure you can have the door open once you see who it is via your remote viewing security TV, but then the person must find you. That is where the E-Butler comes in. He answers the door for you, unlocking any natural lock like any normal person would, and then shows your guest to where you are located. You do not even have to control the movements of the machine, it is that advanced. Hurry and buy your advanced copy today. Its only $5000 or 500 euro. Supplies are going fast.

We follow then a salesman, selling this device to those who need it, that is, those who have not yet bought it. There is one house left near where this salesman lives, down an off-beat road, where real hicks live. They do not have those technologies we take for granted, such as instant dinners from the Comfort Chair 2323, or a super cocktail, with real liquour materialized based on the country of the drink's orgin. No, this is a place of a strange man, old and gray, who has in his house something so eccentric that the salesman nearly dies of laughter.

Books. Lots and lots of Books.

"Don't you just have the video book play for you on the screen?"

"I've seen it. It just wasn't the same."

And so a conversation begins, between a salesman and the customer; one will walk away from their encounter changed for the better, and the other will be satisfied that he made the life of another soul easier and more relaxed.

I don't know. I've been playing around with it for the last couple of days. What do you think?

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Joyeux Noel (Merry Christmas)

Joyeux Noel (Merry Christmas)
The movie Joyeux Noel has in it what all war movie goers love: exciting suspenseful drama pumped alive with living characters and moving circumstances. It captures the horror of war to a degree not exactly captured before. For it shows the human struggle of conflict, plus the overall pointlessness of the slaughter that was World War I.
The movie takes place in 1914, the first year of the Great War. The opening sequence is not one of bloody combat, but rather of three children, one English, one French, and one German, in their respective countries, standing alone in front of maps of their great empires. They are reciting, from memory, a rhyme that a child might recite in front of the class. However, the poem of sorts is more of the nationalist thinking that permeated the world at that time, for each child speaks of praise for their fatherland and emphasizes the destruction of their enemy, be it England (the German child) or Germany (the English and French child). It gives a taste of the greater conflict in the movie, not just one of country versus country but one of prejudice and hatred against human, and ultimately Christian, charity.
The storyline follows three main characters into the war, one young man from Scotland, one singer from Germany (his name is Sprink), and one commander who has been in the war since the beginning. Christmas Eve is approaching, and the death count keeps rising. After being sent to perform a private concert with his love (the instance of the only sex scene in the entire movie, which could have been clipped out with no harm to the story) Sprink returns to his trench with the woman so that they may sing for his fellow soldiers. Each camp is having their respective Christmas dinners: there are Christmas trees with the Germans, as well as chocolate, champagne with the French, and bagpipes with the Scots. Suddenly across the empty stretch of land between trenches, a sound echoes, for the pipers are playing their pipes, a Scottish song of going home. As the song fades out, Sprink begins his, in German, of course. The pipers recognize the tune, and begin playing along. Soon the two sides are trying to sing along with each other, and Sprink stands from the trench with a glowing Christmas tree singing a song the pipers had just been playing, this time a Christmas one, in the one language all three sides would recognize: Latin. Soon a decision is reached, one which many of the common soldiers on both sides feel suspicious over: a cease fire for Christmas Eve. The men meet and discuss, talking with each other about home, families, wives, and everything else under the sun. The Scottish chaplain says Christmas Eve Mass for everyone (I don’t know the specifics of the Mass, like what is used for bread and wine. The movie doesn’t show it. However, it is in Latin, even if the men are responding. Maybe they were all altar servers at one point), which later in the movie he declares was the most important Mass he ever said. The night reaches its end and the sides go to their camp. However, each side’s soldiers think the same question? What will happen to them in the morning? Can they really fight each other after all that?
I won’t tell you what happens next, because its best to be on the edge of your seat during the nest half hour or so, until the end, for it also heightens the emotional impact of the movie.
I give the movie 3 ½ stars out of 4, mainly because of the pointless sexual digression, and for the liturgical historical inaccuracies. Other than that, it is an incredible movie, moving and beautiful.

In English, German, and French (watch with English subtitles on). Rated PG-13 for intense war violence and a brief scene of sexuality/nudity.

***½

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

you know its a good game when. . .

My brother was playing ADOM on my computer. I was watching, and he was kinda bored. I had mentioned that one could use anything in one's items as weapon; just wield it and watch the fun. Same thing with throwing. So my brother starts throwing clothes at people, killing a couple of them. Then he loads up with 7 bandages (he's a healer). An enemy comes and he begins throwing bandages at the thing. He killed it, which is wierd to start with, since bandages don't seem to be the most dangerous weapon to throw. However, what happened in the actual thing was wierd. The monster was injured, then sevearly injured, started bleeding, then died because of the blood and bandages.

IT DIED OF BLOOD LOSS FROM BEING HIT BY BANDAGES!!!!!! BANDAGES STOP THE BLEEDING!!!!

We both laughed and laughed. Such fun, such fun.

Oh, and I got him to smite himself. He wasn't as impressed by it as I was. Oh well.