droolie's corner o' the planet

assorted tidbits

Okay. Back to this blogging thing.  :)

It's been a long three weeks, starting with a horrid constantly sneezing kind of cold (blech!) which went away fairly quickly, but totally goofed up my sleep, triggering a fibro flare and a just there and steady burning "ick" headache.  The "lovely" sort that scoff at meds.  First there was no sleep.  Then too heavy and too much sleep.  And aching all over, compounded by that goofy hangover from the Soma and Lortab I took one day.  Ugh!  But...it's over and done with now and I'm back into spiff territory. 

It wasn't a total wash, though, as I've gotten some reading done, watched quite a few movies on TV, and stuff like that.  I'd come home from school wiped and sleepy/groggy, with no desire past stretching out flat on the sofa, so I indulged in such most nights last week.  It seems it was just what I needed.  :)

Okay.  The books. 

I finished Ender's Shadow, for school.  I had trouble getting through this for a couple of reasons.  One big reason is that, like its predecesor, I just can't willingly suspend my disbelief far enough to buy child prodigies of the level depicted.  A one year-old that has complete self-preservation skills?  A five year old that has advanced intuition and understands and implements the finest details of sociology and military theory?  Give me a break. Genetically enhanced or not, I'm not buying it.  I'm not a big fan of military sf anyway.  But I got through it for the sake of Battle of Books.  The other BOB book I'm working on now, Lireal, is excellent.  I am finding that it doesn't really matter that our librarians picked the second of a series of three books for the battle.  It's strong as a stand-alone.  The characters are compelling, and the plot moves very quickly for a 700-page book.  No slogging there.  I hope to get the last couple of hundred pages done tonight.  Also on my pile are a couple of Mary Shomon's books, which I've dipped into here and there this week, and the new Peterson biography on Jane Goodall, who is one of my big heroes.  I've also got Lisey's Story and A Canticle for Leibowitz on the stack. 

I also finished Cormac McCarthy's The Road, which rates its own paragraph, even though it's not easy to talk about.  This is a very rare kind of book.  In thirty-odd years, I've read thousands of books.  Very few have hit as hard as The Road, and left me completely in awe.  Yes, this is a bleak book.  Any tale set in the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust will by rights be bleak.  But rarely will a book with essentially just two main characters have so much humanity.  The writing itself is highly literary, emotionally charged, and poetic, which serves to dig the story of a man and his boy travelling the wasteland further under the skin.  This is a book that I couldn't help being absorbed by, and yet to try and describe it with mere words is extremely difficult.  It's a book that one almost has to experience and feel for oneself.  I can't recommend it enough. 

Then there are movies. 

I did a lot of catching up on things I hadn't seen.  I watched probably a dozen movies over Christmas break, so I know I couldn't list them all.  But there were some highlights.  The Chronicles of Narnia was a lot more interesting than I expected.  I've only ever read the second book of the series, back when I did my Junior Field work, and didn't overly care for it, due to it's highly British tone.  But I may try reading the series again one of these days after watching the film, which was excellent.  I watched Dark Water, again, and still think it's one of the finest suspense/horror movies I've ever watched.  When Harry Met Sally was amusing.  Cellular was pretty decent, mostly due to William H. Macy. It's a day spa!  Chicken Little was cute fluff, as was The Pacifier.  Easily, though, the best movie I've watched in the last few weeks was Munich, which was on last night.  Yep,  2:40 is a long running time, particularly when it starts at 9:00 pm and runs until almost midnight.  Yep, it's graphic.  Quite violent in spots, actually, but not gratuitously so.  But it's a very important story, and it's handled well.  It's rare for a movie of that length not to lag, but this one didn't.  The acting was top-notch, as was the directing and cinematography.  Personally, after watching it, I think it should've gotten the Oscar for picture at least.  It was beautifully done.  I'm not usually one for political/espionage/operative kinds of movies, but this one had me completely hooked. 

hey! i did remember my login info!

I was a bit worried there, since it's been so long.  I kinda got out of the blogging habit, with everything else going on. 

Not a whole lot to say, really.  Most days are very similar to each other.  I get up, go to school, and come home for dinner and sleep.  In the evenings I tend to forum, read a little, and work my way through my New York Times Sunday Crossword Omnibus. 

I've been doing a fair amount of reading, though it's in pockets of time scattered here and there.  Most of it's for our Battle of the Books competition at school (4 more of those to go), with a little smattering of grown-up books in there, too.  I think the one I'm personally most enamored with of late is Cormac McCarthy's The Road, which I might finish today, maybe.  I haven't read any of his other stuff, but if it's nearly as powerful and lyrical as The Road is, I think I'll definitely be reading more at some point.  I am looking forward to reading the new book on Jane Goodall.  Perhaps I'll blow the gift card I got the other day on that one.  We'll see.

I've not watched a lot of movies lately, either, but I did rent some a couple of weeks ago.  I liked The Davinci Code, but it was very slow.  I'd venture to guess that the people who saw the movie without reading the book first were bored to tears for most of it.  If you had read it, at least you could watch for stuff.  I also rented Ice Age 2, because I love the Scrat scenes.  I thought it was just okay, compared to the first movie.  Word Play, a documentary on Will Shortz, crossword puzzles, and the major tournament he runs every year was definitely fun to watch.  Identity, passed off as an updated version of Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians was decent, though the swearing for the sake of swearing was a bit annoying.  And the last movie I watched was Christine, which I taped the other night.  I hadn't seen that since early high school, and I watched it for nostalgia, mostly,  since I read the book several times a way long time ago. 

So, that's pretty much it.  Not much going on in my section o' the world.  Just enough to scribble about for a couple of minutes just to prove I still exist and make sure I hadn't forgotten my login.  :)  I'm sure there were all kinds of other books and things I meant to mention since the last bloggy bit, but I never kept a list.  I suppose if I were to get really good about blogging again, forgetting things won't be a big issue.  We'll see.