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My LiveJournal Trick-or-Treat Haul
darkelf105 goes trick-or-treating, dressed up as pirate.
dosfox gives you 4 mottled green evil-flavoured nuggets.
dreamsoffaraway tricks you! You lose 1 pieces of candy!
lady_bell tricks you! You lose 1 pieces of candy!
lenusazul gives you 11 blue licorice-flavoured jawbreakers.
misterstallion gives you 16 light green lemon-flavoured gummy worms.
neokitty1 tricks you! You lose 1 pieces of candy!
rayechu gives you 6 blue mint-flavoured gummy bats.
rokk_lobster tricks you! You get a broken balloon.
darkelf105 ends up with 34 pieces of candy, and a broken balloon.
Go trick-or-treating! Username:
Another fun meme brought to you by rfreebern.

rokk_lobster whyfor do you always trick and not treat?

Books, Books, Books

Meh, I’m so boring it hurts.

 

Anywho, I finished O.R. Mellings’ novel Hunter’s Moon about a week ago. It was surprisingly good for a book that not only was classified as a YA but was directly marketed to teens and tweens (pretty sure I saw an ad for it in some teen thingy magazine) AND it had faeries in it.  It wasn’t Literature and it in no way shape or form holds up to something like The Wizard Of Earthsea or The Golden Compass or Sabriel or The Keys To The Kingdom or a whole host of other series. However, as I believe that this is her first novel, she is going to be something given a few years. Her writing already has the making for some very elegant prose (still a bit rough around the edges, with some descriptions rocking me out of the story and some out of character moments), but overall it was very, very good . Her scenes dealing with the darkness of Faerie had real menace and she actually had FOOD descriptions (and managed to make traditional Irish cuisine appetizing). Her characters were very likable, and except for a fast,  I have found my true love in only fifty pages arc, the story was very enjoyable. Her faeries were pretty well done, although not as edgy as I would have liked but it takes, I think, lots of experience to give faeries the kind of threatening beauty they should have. I did appreciate, however, that her creatures of Faerie weren’t twittery little butterflies and didn’t resemble D&D elves or assorted other bad fantasy clichés.  She has mas educacion in Irish history, philosophy, and mythology and adds very nice little bits into her work. I see there is a sequel (The Summer King) out and so I shall read it and hope that the series gets even more enjoyable with practice. So’s if you are looking for a faerie fix, recommend this, but if you can get your hands on Holly Black (Tithe, Valiant, Spiderwick) she is probably the slightly better read.

 

I am currently working on Monkey: A Journey To The West. It is a great story and a very good adaptation (I think, but couldn't say for sure as I am not familiar with Journey to the West except for what I learned from Saiyuki), but I need to get some books on Chinese philosophy, Buddhism, Taoism and mythology as I think I am missing huge chunks of the story's underlying themes. However, knowing next to nothing about those things, I am stll very much entertained.

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Wow, not only did Chile elect a female president, they're actually proud of it. That rocks. However, it makes me sad. Because lets imagine that Hillary, theoretically, maybe, wins. Can you imagine the headlines? "Hillary Clinton, First Woman President In US History---Will She Start WW III Because She Is PMSing?" Yes, and I have actaully heard this as a reason why women cannot be presidents, soldiers, or well anything important. Because they have periods.  Even Newt Gingrich had gotten on national television and said women couldn't go into combat because they might get their period. You know women have been getting and dealing with getting their periods for millions of years. We are still around, we survived, apparently we're handling it, and we've had lotsa practice. Our periods do not hinder us in our daily lives, for the most part, if men who suffer frequent heart attacks (Cheney) and want to molest teenagers (Foley) can lead this nation, well then, by golly, what's a period to that?

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Argh, is it like national "I feel like being a moron day, so I should take my stupid self to the library day"? Because seriously, the last ten patrons, I just wanted to scream "CAN YOU REPHRASE YOUR QUESTION SO IT'S NOT RETARDEd, please?" Yes, if you are a cute little seven-year-old boy, you may ask me "Do you have any books about being grouchy?" If you are a forty-some year old dirty dude with crooked teeth and bad breath, you are not allowed to look down my shirt, then wink, then ask "Do y'all, ya know, have any dirty books?" ARGHHHHHHHHHHH! Your job shouldn't make you feel like a pirate, unless of course you are one.

Oh yeah....

Did anyone see this little gem last night? If not, lets just say that poor, grieving dad blamed school shootings on....evolution and abortion, among other things. Except, dear dad, that the school shooting you were asked to comment about took place in a private Amish school, was committed by an ADULT with some serious psychological issues that probably have more to do with him than anything anyone ever told him in school, and even if it had been committed by an Amish kid, in Amish country these people are deeply Christian and they live their faith. Do you think for an instant that those kids don't hear about God every day at school? That they don't pray there? That's they don't read the Bible at school? Dude, I went to Catholic school every year of my education, except college. And let me tell you we prayed every day, we said the pledge and at the end added the born and unborn, we had a class called Morality, we had a Bible class, and went to mass every Friday. And you know what, a school shooting was just as likely to happen there as anywhere. Want to know why? Because the same problems that caused Columbine exist EVERYWHERE, even where God is, erm, taught about.  Kids are alienated. Not because of abortion, but because it sucks to be a kid in this country. Because we pay lip service to kids. We tell ourselves that kids are important, but schools are chronically under funded, children go hungry, are abused, killed, and tortured. Because parents encourage their kids to pick on kids that are different. Because it sucks to be a kid. There are no easy answers as to what causes this random violence. But I am going to tell you one thing for sure, religion isn't going to fix it. Church attendance is at its highest in this country. Conservative Christians have almost unlimited power in all branches of the government. Some 90% of all Americans believe in God. And you know what, they are countries in this world that live, breathe, and eat the most radical elements of religion and those are the countries where there are suicide bombers that tear apart little children in the name of faith every day. Radical Christianity can't fix these problems, only make them worse.