Quote of the Day...

"You're a Mesopotamian fertility figurine and I'm a hammer-wielding looter!"

-From a Get Fuzzy comic strip someone at work had posted on their cubicle.

Venting my spleen

Every now and then I like to post about things that I find annoying in a humorous sort of way. It is strangely appealing even if it is not necessarily pleasant to everyone involved. Sort of like anal porn. Anyway, in my tiredness and upset stomach-ness tonight I got to thinking about a few phrases which annoy me.

"Closure"
This word always makes me think of the end of a surgical procedure. It's a nice concept, the idea of a single definitive act, process or ritual of some kind being able to get you over an unpleasant situation. But in the reality of life these experiences are few and far between and I feel that the slinging about of this touchy-feely buzzword by touchy-feely self-help book writers cheapens them somehow. Ironically, the one time I find the word "closure" acceptable also just happens to be the one time I make an exception to my principle that you should not commit blumpy with someone you love. If you blumpy with your lover during a session of angsty break-up sex, then this will in all likelihood provide closure for your relationship. However I have not tested this theory and really have no desire to.

"Christ-figure"
I see this term thrown around a lot in essays and reviews of books and movies and it's thrown around so much that it's begun to lose all meaning and gets tacked on regardless of whether a character is intended to contain parallels to Christ or not. A protagonist happens to be a nice guy who is looked up to by his friends and who gets some hard knocks for his trouble and BANG! all of a sudden he's a "Christ-figure." wth? Sometimes he doesn't even HAVE to be a nice guy. I've read a few reviews of the movie Quills which, with a straight face, actually described the Marquis de Sade in the film as a "Christ-figure."

Um... No.

If you're looking for a "Christ-figure" then I highly recommend the "Buddy Christ" figure from the excellent movie Dogma.

"Romance Languages"
Am I the only non-French/Spanish/Italian speaker who finds this descriptor at worst utterly bigoted and at best extremely arrogant? What the hell makes these languages more "romantic" than any other? If we called them the "We Lie Down For Fascist Dictators Languages" I'll bet somebody would be pissed. I'm sorry, I didn't realize that language was a high school cafeteria with a "cool kids" table that only a few languages were allowed to sit at.

I like this analogy. If languages are high school students, then what is Latin? I think it must be like somebody who graduated, then came back and took a job there as a guidance counselor. German would be this dopey fifth-year senior who gets A's in shop class and D's in everything else. Nobody's seen Sanskirt in a while. We think he might have dropped out. But the odds are you'll probably run into him working in a convienience store somewhere.

How do you determine what language is a "romance language" anyway? Can anybody nominate one? Does it even have to be a real language? If that's the case then I nominate Noldorean Elven, (the predominate language spoken in Middle Earth prior to the conquest of Angband and the fall of Morgoth,) as a romance language. If you don't like my choice you can always vote for Klingon or Esperanto.

Thank you. That is all.

Interesting meme

Lifted from odanu

Five Doable Things I Want To Do Sometime in the Future

1.Publish my novel.

2.Find a girlfriend.

3.Complete my next two "Harlequin of Christ" paintings.

4.Begin writing my next novel.

5.Start playing L5R more regularly again.



Five Doable Things I Want To Do Tomorrow

1.Sleep

2.Sleep

3.Wake up, realize I don't have to be anywhere, go back to sleep.

4.Call in sick just because I can, although I won't actually do this.

5.Play Fatal Frame on PS2.



Five Crazy/Difficult To Accomplish Things I Want To Do in the Future

1.Turn my novel series into a Harry Potter/LOTR-sized industry of games, movies, apparel, and other assorted widgets.

2.Participate in getting Universal Health Care for all Americans.

3.Appear in a real movie that actually gets completed.

4.Record a CD.

5."Two chicks at once. You think if ah had a million dollars ah could arrange that?" Just kidding. I was quoting Office Space. My real answer is live in England.


Five Things I Would Like To Destroy

1.The perscription drug industry in the United States.

2.The ACLU.

3.Acid Reflux disease.

4.Some of the choices I've made.

5.Attitudes that maintain women in the world as second class citizens.



Five Skills I Would Like To Possess


1.Organization

2.Motivation

3.Control of my temper

4.Musical virtuosity

5.Meeting women. Yes, it's a skill.



Five People I Would Like to Challenge to a Sword Duel or any kind of hand-to-hand combat (person may be living or dead)


1.Miranda Otto - but it'd be a duel like in Final Flight of Osiris from The Animatrix where we'd just slash each other's clothes off :)

2. Keira Knightly - same circumstances as above :)

3. anirishspitfire because my good arm needs a workout.

4. Gina Davis in her pirate costume from Cutthroat Island (same stipulations as answers 1 & 2.)

5. Wilhelm Fredrich Nietzche - because beating the shit out of syphalitic lunatics who keep babbling about der Ubermensch is fun!


Five People, Fictional, I Want to Meet.


1.Sauron before he became a big flaming eye.

2.White Crow, heroine of the novel Rats and Gargoyles.

3.Elayne Trakand from the Wheel of Time novels.

4.Eowyn - rowrl! :)

5. Les Belle Dame Sans Merci (meeting to take place under very controlled circumstances.)


Five Celebrities, living or dead, I want to meet.


1.Jesus - I want some answers.

2.Adolf Hitler

3.Vlad Tepes

4.Nicole Kidman

5.St. Augustine