Some of the written words were not so familiar. I did not remember Dumbo's ears being insured for a million dollars but I thought it was pretty funny that they were.

I also, again, thought the amount of smoking in the movie was pretty crazy. Everyone from the circus master, to the clowns, to the birds smoked, and drank. I had completely forgotten about Dumbo and Timothy getting falling down drunk. And, then having a really bad trip on top of it!

Don't drink kids, otherwise you will have the mother of all bad trips, about pink elephants! I also thought it was funny how there was a mega-tron type elephant part way through the trip. Good stuff.

But for all the smoking and alcohol, there was still a stork to introduce the concept of how the circus animals got their babies. Not that I didn't love the storks. I used to remember seeing all the baby animals arrive being my favorite part.

I still love the movie Dumbo and I really think they should come out with a dress up Dumbo doll of some sort, with all of his cute costume changes. He was just so adorable!

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(cousen on Nov 3, 2009 10:10 PM) www asia sex com

The music wasn't, obviously and it was nice to hear a lot of the pieces I remember dancing too when I took ballet, but everything else I can tell I just didn't have the attention span for, and it's just as well.

Even as an adult I had to watch the thing in two sittings! Ironically enough I stopped right at the intermission even though I wasn't expecting one and then continued from there.

Toccata and Fugue in D Minor

The first piece was a bit like a modern day music video, and I thought that was kind of interesting how they said it was the first of it's kind. Apparently they also were the first of it's kind to control which side of the theater sound came through for this piece. Then it moved into being a bit like a visualizations plugin for a media player. New concepts for the time and it's interesting to see Disney pioneering in this field.

Nutcracker Suite

I thought it was amusing when the announcer said this was a really old ballet that isn't preformed any more. It is nowadays in theaters all across the country every Christmas! I was a little surprised to see the (undefined) nudity in the fairies, but I guess because there was no definition it was considered okay.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice

The most famous part of Fantasia: The Sorcerer's Apprentice. It was the only part that I ever paid attention to as a child and I remember hand writing out the book I owned that told the story of The Sorcerer's Apprentice when I was younger. I never before had realized how many words were in that book. My hand was killing me by the end.

I did think it was a little shocking how Mickey went about destroying the broom. Pretty graphic for a Disney movie.

The Rite of Spring

This was an interesting look at how science used to think the earth was formed, the dinosaurs came about and how they subsequently became extinct. Again a little violent and graphic, but not too bad. A lot of the animation of how they did the dinosaurs were done in ways that have since been dis-proven. For example, the brachiosaurus could not have held his head as low as he did throughout the short, he probably would have fainted or given himself a stroke.

I also loved that parts of it looked like it was straight out of Spore (or perhaps the other way around, eh?) that was a lot of fun to see.

Intermission/Meet the Soundtrack

An amusing bit, interesting to see the soundtrack perform. A bit like an equalizer, only far more creative!

The Pastoral Symphony

I could see a lot of the inspiration for the movie Hercules in this short. And, again with the nudity. Pretty defined breasts this time, but they got on some clothes eventually. Obviously the style of the hats they wore were things popular in the '40's and not today! I did notice that the african zebra centaurs were considered servants or attendants in one part and was surprised that made it past any sort of review board.

The unicorns were freaking adorable why did I not watch this part when I was little? I loved unicorns!

Dance of the Hours

A ballet piece that I recognized from dance class, this piece was very entertaining to watch. I loved how all the creatures that portrayed ballerinas were animals you would not think in the least graceful enough to play the part (ostriches, hippos, elephants, alligators). It almost seemed for a moment that I was watching a Warner Brothers cartoon though and not a Disney one.

Night on Bald Mountain/Ave Maria

Pretty scary stuff here. Not to mention full on upper body frontal female nudity, complete with erect nipples. Yikes. I could see some of the inspiration for the evil genie Jafar from Aladdin in this one as well. I definitely got the religious ending to it as well, no matter that Disney toned it down some. It was just as well. You need some deliverance after that nightmare!

I can't wait to watch Fantasia 2000. Supposedly it has parts that couldn't make it into Fantasia that Disney storyboarded out but never finished. Definitely looking forward to it.

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I'm definitely going to prepare and partcipate in april when they have it again. It will be a good chance to get caught up on Full Metal Alchemist and Evangelion and maybe I'll finally have the last book from the Dark is Rising series and can sit down and read those as well. I don't think I'd do well with a long book, unless it was a Georgette Heyer.

I did end up finding a huge network of fellow book blogs and lots of other reading challenges to participate in. It's always nice to find new things to get involved with. Especially when it comes to books!

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Anyway, we're here to talk about a puppet not a princess.

First off I thought it was amusing that the opening scenes contained clocks that were at first whimsical and then annoying, though later they were used for celebration, and nearly all of them contained foreshadowing of the plot to come. I didn't realize this until later, but after I did the clocks became a little creepy for me when before they were cute.

This movie had a lot of creepy elements actually, I remember when I was younger and thought that the scenes that took place at Pleasure Island were foreboding and scary, especially when the true reason for taking the boys there was revealed. It was even more so as an adult when, with my larger attention span, I realized that Pinocchio left and the other boys didn't, and he never even went to tell their mothers what had happened to them. But, since it was all symbolism anyway I suppose that's the way it had to be.

The symbolism of course being that if you skivved off school and played hooky and didn't get an education or learn a trade that you would become a jack ass (literally) and be forced to do manual labor the rest of your life.

Speaking of jack asses, I was surprised at the number of times jack ass was said throughout Pinocchio, and they weren't always strictly speaking talking about the donkey's, though I suppose a lenient review board could interpret it as such. Honestly with all the fighting, smoking, alcohol, hints at rowdy boys and slutty women and swearing I think for sure a modern day review would have given the movie a PG rating if not PG-13. And, it wouldn't be a classic, some religious group would have probably boycotted it regardless of the good message (think Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone).

I did think it was a little confusing to have the smoking be in a bad light but then to have Geppetto be a smoker himself. And, smoking in bed too! Generally considered nowadays to be a very Not Smart thing.

And, on a final note, I was surprised at how, well, horny Jiminy Cricket was. My husband watched Snow White and the Seven Dwarves with me and he was constantly making insuations about the dwarves, but no insuations were necessary with Jiminy, he said right out what he was thinking half the time. It was pretty funny.

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Though not nearly enough, obviously.

Some of my goals did not end up panning out and so need to be replaced with new goals as well.

1) Install time management software and input clients and details into it. Use it.

Complete!

This one was completed but the software doesn't work in a way that I would like it to. I might have to go shopping for something else. In the mean time everything is organized and in one place at least.

2) Create my business website and get business cards printed.

Complete!

8) Transfer over and upgrade graphica.

Complete!

But, I'm looking to re-redesign.

9) Transfer over and upgrade fabula.

Complete!

But, I'm looking to re-redesign.

14) Design Googlies portal.

Complete!

I'm surprised I didn't blog this before actually, I finished this a while ago.

15) Finish upgrading RAM.
16) Upgrade graphics adapter.

For both of these, it's just not worth it anymore, I need a whole new computer at this point to be honest. This one has had a good run but it's coming up on its fifth birthday and that's like having a ten year old car in internet years. Just isn't quite the thing anymore, you know?

18) Catalog, index and organize book collection.

Complete!

Though, as always, this is an ongoing thing with me because I just went to a brown bag sale and bought three brown bags full of books. So I'm out of shelf space, again, and they all need entered into my system as well. But, it was done before that, so it counts!

22) Build, paint and arrange shelving for the Dining Room.

Complete!

71) Strip, refinish and reupholster dining room chairs.

I just struck this off the list because most of our dining chairs and really old and brittle and broke. In fact I forgot myself and the chair I was sitting in and dared to actually lean against the back of my chair and snapped it pretty badly. This goal is being replaced with buy NEW dining room chairs.

23) Sew cushions (and get pillows) for the Dining Room.

This isn't happening since we are probably going to be moving soon and the bench this was for is a built in bench.

24) Alter, buy and hang curtains.

Complete!

As of last April!

26) Register to vote in Illinois.

Complete!

In time to vote Obama.

27) Learn to cook five meals from start to finish more or less from memory and have them turn out consistently.

I can do two, though I'm not sure if one of them counts, spaghetti (and meatsauce and garlic bread) and mac and cheese (with sliced hotdog). The later I'm thinking doesn't really count, though I know I'm impressed!

53) Finish unpacking from the move.

Complete!

Only took three months. :P

66) Clean out my inbox.

Complete!

Only because Thunderbird crashed spectacularly and I lost several thousand emails with it. My fault.

Any goals that I said would happen every week or month did not end up happening so I need new ones.

I did come up with two new ones, one watch every Disney movie ever made and two partcipate in a 24-hour read-a-thon this coming Saturday. I can probably come up with some work related ones, and if we move again which it's looking like we might then I will definitely be breaking that up into achievable goals again.

Anyway, I'm feeling pretty good about it all. Ready to get started on some new ones. Maybe get a few more small easy goals in. We'll see.

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We're going to put aside the mysoginistic and sexist themes and story line because it was a 1930's movie and a story from way way before that. So it's granted to them.

First off, the poor poor turtle! A small side character that kept wanting to partcipate and follow around Snow White with all the other woodland creatures but just never made it in time. I had forgotten all about him.

Secondly, Snow White's vibrato really started getting to me right away. That style of singing just isn't popular anymore. That being said she had a much more beautiful voice than some of the nasally voiced princesses of my youth.

I also thought it was very interesting that Dopey seemed to exibit a lot of the signs and symptoms nowadays associated with autism. Who would have thought that? He doesn't talk, is considered slow, has problems communicating and judging and interpreting social norms correctly, etc. Not for lack of trying, either. And, the way the other dwarves treated him in that light was pretty horrible.

I was pretty surprised at the rascist jab at asians part way through, wasn't looking for that.

The dwarves used the term "Jimminy Cricket!" on more than one occasion. I thought that was a term that rose out of the movie Pinnochio but apparently it's older than that because that movie didn't come out until 1940.

Finally, true love's first kiss was pretty anti climatic. Especially when compared to how it was in Shrek when it broke the spell, but perhaps it was more realistic as far as kisses go in the end anyway.

I was going to launch into an argument about how true love's first kiss can't happen if the prince never knew her in life to love her in death (you can't truly love someone you don't know) but I guess that isn't true since he did meet her once. Whether or not that is true love is anyone's guess, though obviously it counts as far as Disney's concerned otherwise there would be no happily ever after.

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I thought I would come back to this blog a bit. I always get a little discouraged when stuff isn't easy to update and this blog hasn't been easy for a long long time. I need to totally rethink how I am doing this if I want to keep up with it. And, I don't think I'm ready to let it all go just yet.

So, this Saturday I am unofficially participating in a 24-hour read-a-thon. Because if there is one thing that has stayed the same though my decade plus of web presence and blogging it is my love of reading. During that 24 hours, which I probably won't stay up for because most days I can't even stay up for 12, my goals are going to be the following:

1.) Review my huge, no I need to get caplocksy, HUGE backlog of books that need reviewing. Srsly. It's huge.

2.) Work on my book blog, get in a new design that thinks outside of the box and really is just a book review site. No more sticking into a blog mold, because that doesn't really work. Chatty place is here, book review place there, it should work as a dynamic site better than it does a blog.

3.) Read. A lot. Not commiting to books, but I have plenty lying around and will just try and read to my fancy as much as possible.

4.) Participate in mini-challenges, even if it's unofficially. They sound like a lot of fun.

The reason I haven't signed up officially is because a) I'm planning on reviewing books I've already read with my time, which is kind of weird but needs to be done and this is impetus enough I think, 2) I'm going to be working on my blog mainly throughout the day and that doesn't really count as far as reading goes, and I³) I'm chicken.

Hopefully I will be able to save Fabula. If I can save Fabula I can save the world, or at least the rest of my blogs.

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When I first started blogging I manually entered in my updates on gURLpages a long, long time ago.

After that I switched to Blogger about a year after it came out and was hosted on there for a while, then switched to being hosted on Geocities (before Yahoo! took away free ftp access). I hated how Blogger kept eating my posts though and I also hated the need for remotely hosted comments.

Several years after that I got my own host and used Greymatter for awhile. I started chaffing though when I saw all the cool plugins that Movable Type had, and it seemed like Greymatter was being abandoned. Then our hosting company did a fly by night and I lost all of my archives from the past four or five years. It was very devastating.

We switched to a new host, Dreamhost, and installed Movable Type there and I've been using it for years now. That being said, I am looking to switch to WordPress, because once Movable Type started charging for installs their user base dried up and all of their plugins now require way more work than I strictly require for my little set up here. So, WordPress it is.

They all had their pluses and minuses, but I have to say I'm looking forward to WordPress and what it can do. I'm ready to go fully php and maybe throw in some flash while I'm at it.

2. How did you get into blogging? How long have you had a blog?

Well, I got into blogging thanks to a little site called Full Moon Graphics. They made the graphics that I used on my site on gURLpages all those ages ago and I was quite a fan of the artist. She got into blogging and using Blogger and I decided to tag along. I have been blogging on and off for eight or nine years now. I don't have my original archives but I started coding websites in 1998 and I know that I must have gotten my first blog in late 1999 or early 2000.

3. Why do you blog?

It was a nice place to write and easily publish updates on my thoughts and what was going on in my life. Later it became stress relief during school, and a great way to connect with people and let off steam about classes because I was to shy to do so in class. During 9/11 blogs were the only way I had to find out what was going on as all the major news sites and search engines were either timing out or crashing from the load of people just as worried and scared as I was.

Now? I'm far more careful about what I blog. When I started I could honestly say I was probably the only girl in the school who had a blog. I posted my essays and stories on my blog and had it get picked up by search engines and then was accused of plagiarizing from my own website by teachers that couldn't believe that a girl my age knew what a computer was let alone had coded her own website and blog. But, things have changed and now everyone and their mother has a myspace/xanga/livejournal type thing where they post far more personal things than I ever would have risked and then some. It's become passe. People ask why I don't have a myspace or facebook account and they don't seem to understand that I've been "myspacing" for nearly a decade now on my own terms and in my own way.

When diaryland came out I stayed away because it wasn't why I was blogging, I was blogging for me and not for other people and diaryland (regardless of the word diary) seemed more like a way to fight with people in RL with words and by posting slanderous and scintillating things about themselves and others. Then the "new thing" because livejournal, then deadjournal, then xanga, then myspace and now facebook. Same shit, different site. I said no 10 years ago to diaryland and I'm still saying no today. No, way. That's not why I blog.

I blog for me, really. To hold myself accountable to my goals, to organize my thoughts, to answer some questions for myself outloud. I have other blogs for other purposes, but really this one is just for me. That's probably why it's so neglected, actually. When I want community I go to a forum, but (aside from the stray commenter) that's not really what my blog has ever been about.

4. Do you have theme blog (i.e. crafting, cooking, deployment, pregnancy, etc.) or is it all in one?

I broke down my blogs into several different groups. There's this one which is my main one, my photo blog Graphica, my book blog Fabula, my video blog (which might or might not survive the restructuring) Pixi Agito, and my Sims 2 blog Somnium. Each blog does it's own, pretty self evident, thing and the only place where they overlap really is here.

5. Do you let it all hang out on your blog, or do you keep it light?

I keep it pretty light for now, I have a personal RL journal where I really let go. But here? If I have something I'm ready to say to someone, I'd rather say it to their face. Like I said, I'm not into the passive aggressive online back stabbing.

My blog has always been my way of getting away from the heavy stuff in one way or another.

6. What is your favorite thing about your blog? What has it given you?

It's helped me learn a lot about web design to the point where, when I went to college, there wasn't much new to learn until junior year. It's given me a place to be organized, to be publically accountable for my goals and dreams, and even a place to enjoy telling some stories for the Sims 2, to share some of my photography and post some bits of code that might help someone else with their site.

Even if I have no readers at all I still feel like I'm heard just because my thoughts are now out there. Whether that's true or not is beside the point. Just posting helps you feel not so very alone after all.

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Autumn is starting (here in the US, anyway), and kids are heading back to school–does the changing season change your reading habits? Less time? More? Are you just in the mood for different kinds of books than you were over the summer?

I think every season might affect what I read a little bit. But, I always thought this was especially true in fall. It's been ingrained in me for many years that fall equals back to work. I think that's why I decided to rush the 101 in 1001 when I discovered it in mid august. I wanted to start it on the first day of september because that's when you go back to school.

A large part of my 101 in 1001 is reading. I have a habit of squirreling away good reads but then never get around to that long stretch of time when I feel I can devote hours to reading them. So they are unread. Mine is especially ridiculous because there are over 100 books in my 400 book collection that I haven't read. Eep!

But, now that I "have" to read them I'm finding enjoyment in reading books again. Even if does feel just a teensy bit like an assignment. It doesn't hurt that I'm rewarding myself with more books as I go. Before now the only thing I was reading was fanfiction of various works that I had already read. It was because I knew the characters and already cared about them and so there was less effort to get into the story, both on my part and on the writer's part. Now that I'm reading new books I find that, while sometimes its hard to care for these new characters, through poor writing or poor characterization, other times the writer makes it all too easy and I'm glad I made the effort to read the book.

So, is this a habit for autumn? Yes and no. I normally find myself gearing up for a back to work mentality in autumn regardless, whether it's organizing things for work or play, doing fall cleaning to get ready to shut up the house for the winter, or looking for a new reading list or new recommendations, I always find something new to focus on for fall. My reading habits often, but don't always, get impacted. I guess I just feel like it's time for a change and a change of season is a good enough reason as any to go ahead with it.

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So we decided to *gasp* try a different pizza place. We tried out Pizza-Ria. And, since we were trying out a new restaurant anyway, I thought I'd go ahead and try a new type of pizza while I was at it. So my husband ordered a half ANSE standard, half canadian bacon with pineapple. He loves this type of pizza and has been hoping I'll try it and love it too.

It was fully as weird as I expected it to be. It didn't taste bad or anything. It was just... weird. I guess I would be open to it as a breakfast/brunch option because that's what it tastes like to me, a breakfast food. If I'm in the mood for something sweet I might go for it, but otherwise just give me my ANSE standard.

As for Pizza-Ria in general I have to say, meh. The crust was really dry, they didn't have canned mushrooms as an option and the pizza was served in squares in the size we normal get (16") instead of in pie slices. They are an okay emergency option but I think the next time Two Brothers is closed we'll just try some place else.

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We got a phone call that was automatically sent out to everyone in the suburb advising us that sand bags were available for our drive ways, that flooding was severe, and that Salt Creek had been allowed to empty out into the abandoned quarry. This sounded interesting, a river flowing into that huge empty quarry! Naturally we headed out to see just what this looked like and we weren't the only ones. There must have been about a dozen people there checking things out at any given time. Slow Sunday, and with all this rain, what else is there to do?

The above is the first part of the quarry where they had made a drain off of Salt Creek and a small river bed to lead to the quarry. Those little "bushes" in the river bed are actually trees!

And, here's the quarry. It wasn't a lake before, I can tell you that!

Next we drove to a nearby park to see how bad the Salt Creek itself was, only to find the parking lot completely flooded. Those concrete lines in the water are the parking bumpers.

Here's the rest of the parking lot.

Hopefully whatever is in that storage unit is water proof. Also, check out the dumpster in the background. Flooded all the way up to the holds that the dumpster trucks use to pick it up by!

We went to a different park because the first one was a) flooded and b) had boarded up fences all the way around so you couldn't get to the Salt Creek at all. We ended up on a bridge that went over it that is part of the Illinois Prairie Path.

The poor trees were flooded up to their branches.

The current was moving incredibly fast. Between that and the dark day it was hard to get good pictures.

That and the sun was starting to set. With the drop in temperature we decided to head home.

It was probably a good thing it all went into the quarry. Don't want to think about how bad the flooding would have been otherwise!

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So many people I know have been affected by this virus and the way that it is implemented and done is so incredibly sleazy and takes horrible advantage of people that only use computers and don't know them. If you don't know what this is, you are incredibly lucky (and probably have a good ad blocker).

Antivirus 2008 is a "product" that advertises itself through pop ups on sleazy websites. It looks like a normal windows xp type window that is advising you that there is a problem with your system. It tells you that you have a virus and they have detected it and to click here to get it taken care of. It's fairly obvious that this is totally bogus, if you take a moment to consider how your computer works.

How long does it take a regular antivirus program to scan your computer? 10 minutes? 20 minutes? 30 minutes? How long does it take this totally bogus ad to tell you that you have a virus? What? In the time it takes to load a page? Really? What makes you think, for even a second, that it isn't totally lying to you then? Though, the fact of the matter is, I know that people do think the pop up tells them the truth and click on it and download this software to their computer. You've just opened a big can of worms.

So, next the virus installs itself. It is a virus, or more specifically malware. AVG, Avast and Computer Associates can (usually) all pick it up. The .exe for the virus is constantly updated though and all three main antivirus programs are struggling to keep up. Sometimes it does not detect it, though often an adaware or spyware program will, to little effect, as they can't uninstall it.

What does this virus do? Essentially it just seems to be a bloated trojan that you can't uninstall through conventional means, there is generally a keylogger involved as well so that when you give them your credit card number it can send it off to them since this software is in no way legal or accredited. Lovely. Don't make any credit card purchases using your computer until this is out of your system.

How do I get this damn thing off? The way they want you to get it off is by paying them to take it off. This is why I am labeling this as a market tactic. I bet they are making a fortune right now off of this with all those stolen credit card numbers. The better way leaves you with two options. One, you do this yourself. Two, you take it into a shop and have a professional do it for you.

So, you want to try and uninstall this monster by yourself.

Step One, if you have AVG, Avast or Computer Associates, run an update on it and then run a full scan. If you have done this and it hasn't found Antivirus 2008 wait an hour, run an update and do it again. If it still hasn't found it skip to Step Three. If it picks it up you may be lucky and get that virus out of there on your first go. Reboot and run the scan again, full scan. Then run any adaware type program such as Adaware and/or Spybot. If it's truly gone then go to Step Four.

Step Two, if you have crap like Norton or McAfee in your system, uninstall it. It's crap. You can reinstall it later if you really feel strongly about having crap on your system but for now we need to take the kid gloves off and use some real software to fix this problem, ok? Install any of the three above antivirus programs I mentioned, two are free for personal use, one has a free trial so all three will work for our purposes. Once it's installed, update it to the latest version and run a full scan. If you have done this and it hasn't found Antivirus 2008 wait an hour, run an update and do it again. If it still hasn't found it skip to Step Three. If it picks it up you may be lucky and get that virus out of there on your first go. Reboot and run the scan again, full scan. Then run any adaware type program such as Adaware and/or Spybot. If it's truly gone then go to Step Four.

Step Three, the virus scanner didn't pick it up? You must have a very recent copy of the virus. Try using Malwarebyte's Anti-Malware and this guide. Reboot and run the antivirus scan again, full scan. Then run any adaware type program such as Adaware and/or Spybot. If it's truly gone then go to Step Four.

Step Four, preventive measures. Finally, install Firefox along with a decent Adblocker and delete the IE icon from your desktop, quick launch bar, etc. That way there is no chance that any user of your computer will ever do anything like that ever again. If it happened once, it will happen again, spammers, scammers, and worse are getting better and better at tricking the average computer user into compromising their passwords, their system and their pocket book. You need to get better too and having none of their stuff ever display for you in the first place works to that end.

The best way to avoid an annoying marketing tactic is to not give it a chance to market to you in the first place.

This was a participation in Monday Peeves.

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(XRumerTest on Mar 3, 2010 12:05 PM) Hello. And Bye.

35) Read all unread books in personal collection (not including reference, text books, supplemental).

I only ended up getting two books read this week. I am in a long stretch of boring books that I am determined to get through. I am just very glad that I decided to reward myself and, for every five books that I get through, I get myself a book off of my wish list, whether through book mooch, amazon, or other means. It has been a god send in a dearth of good reading, like I'm experiencing now.

40) Go out on a date with Matthew once every other week.

Our first date ended up being a stay at home date due to the heavy rain that has been bombarding Chicago all weekend. We watched the BBC's Pride and Prejudice (the 1995 rendition). It definitely had it's differences from the 1985 one which we already own. The 1995 one was more human (the actors expressed a wider range of emotions and touched more on the improper scenes of Wickam's debauchery, etc in Pride and Prejudice). It also had children, which 1985 lacked, and depictions of other classes than the rich and the lesser rich. And yet, at the same time, Lizzie's parents were depicted as more inhuman and selfish than they were in the 1985 movie.

In the 1985 movie it was all for humor and the characters were more like characitures of themselves. Yes, the father was distant and spent more time laughing at his family than raising them, yes the mother was thoughtless and simple, but they still clearly loved their children, if not each other. In 1995 they were more in earnest and the mother appeared far more self centered then I like to think of her as. In the 1985, yes, she was silly, but she still loved her daughters and had their back, so to speak.

Anyway, enough of the review. We had a lot of fun eating popcorn snuggled up on the couch and, as it was a made for TV Series that we started late, we ended up staying up until nearly 2AM. It was still lots of fun though.

53) Finish unpacking from the move.

We got no where with this this week. I managed to sort through a stack of some 100+ CDs we had. Mostly programs, old course CDs, burned CDs, back ups, music, games, and more Linux versions than you could shake a stick at! As for the rest. Well... we did get several things listed on Freecycle and we shipped off several books that had been hanging around to people on Book Mooch. We also got our other bulletin board up, but Matt's clothes still haven't been sorted and his art supplies have still conquered the dining room table. Alas. Maybe this week.

66) Clean out my inbox.

Made some progress on this. Managed to get through 2002 and 2003. The strange emails I came across in my work though. There were old emails from my high school teachers and principal, stuff from the reporters who did articles on me when I graduated, stuff from Scholastic from when I won that award for my senior writing portfolio. There were strange forwards from friends, and even stranger memes from the same. One was so idiosyncratic that I had no idea who it was from and couldn't guess even after reading a whole survey about them. Well, two years down, only five to go.

68) Finish and organize this list.

I made two more goals this week. Only 25 more to go. Any ideas at all would be greatly appreciated.

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To understand how amazing it is that I am trying cold tea you have to understand that in Pennsylvania we have Turkey Hill Iced Tea. It is the iced tea. It is what we mean when we say iced tea and it is absolutely delicious and, generally speaking, can only be found in Pennsylvania. I can only imagine what it would be like if the rest of the world discovered this amazing drink. Anyway, I've gone without for several months, living in Illinois I can only partake of Turkey Hill Iced Tea once a year, if that. So desperation drove me to try something else.

Normally I hate anyone elses attempt at iced tea because it just isn't sweet enough, or interestingly tasted enough. It tastes bland and bitter. This tea did not. With the addition of honey and it's own Magic Moon mix of ingredients (floral, sweet and a bit fruity) it was delicious. Not quite Turkey Hill, but a close second. I enjoyed it very much and loved having it as a cold alternative to my morning tea over breakfast.Yum! I'm glad I gave it a go.

That makes four! I have to keep count here on my blog or else I think I will lose count very quickly.

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Today is the 7th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. I know that not all of you who read are in the U.S., but still, it’s vital that none of us who are decent people forget the scope of disaster that a few, evil people can cause–anywhere in the world. It’s not about religion, it’s not about politics, it’s about the acknowledgment that humans should try to work together, not tear each other apart, even when they disagree.

So, feeling my way to a question here … Terrorists aren’t just movie villains any more. Do real-world catastrophes such as 9/11 (and the bombs in Madrid, and the ones in London, and the war in Darfur, and … really, all the human-driven, mass loss-of-life events) affect what you choose to read? Personally, I used to enjoy reading Tom Clancy, but haven’t been able to stomach his fight-terrorist kinds of books since.

And, does the reality of that kind of heartless, vicious attack–which happen on smaller scales ALL the time–change the way you feel about villains in the books you read? Are they scarier? Or more two-dimensional and cookie-cutter in the face of the things you see on the news?

At first I was a bit insulted to think that such a large thing as 9/11 and similar terrorist attacks could affect something so unrelated as reading habits. But, when I thought about it I realized it was true. As my mother pointed out, 9/11 changed everything. It was a whole new world afterwards and reading habits, yes, were changed as well. As were writing habits now that I think of it.

I would have to say that one of the things that I no longer find palatable are two dimensional bad guys. Villains that are just bad for the sake of being bad. If anything the terrorism of the times has taught me that there are more reasons behind evil deeds then just the desire to be evil and that it is important to know them, to understand them, and to use that knowledge to better defend against them.

So, I find any books that have people be evil just to be evil (my recent reading of Paris Trout comes to mind) just isn't enough anymore. There has to be reasons, there has to be logic, there has to be more. I guess I can't stomach mindless violence and thoughtless evil. I never really could, but I think it's become more so since 9/11.

As to villains being scarier, I have to say yes and no. It depends on how they are portrayed. Mindless terror is frightening, but terror with purpose and thought that cannot be stopped, that cannot be defended against due to the protagonists' unpreparedness or ineptitude resulting in inevitable death, that is even more frightening.

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