I found this challenge on Lisa Faber's blog and thought it was a most excellent idea, so I began organizing part of my endless GoodReads "to read" list into an "A toZ" shelf. I think you probably already understand the basic premise: each book on the list should have a title beginning with each letter of the alphabet. And since this was supposed to be fun, I didn't exclude any tripe or books in a series. Here's my list:
A - Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
B - Bonesetter's Daughter, The by Amy Tan
C - Color Purple, The by Alice Walker
D - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
E - Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine
F - Finnikin of the Rock by Melina Marchetta
G - Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (Millenium #3) by Stieg Larsson
H - Hyperion (Hyperion #1) by Dan Simmons
I - Infernal Devises by K.W. Jeter
J - Journal of Curious Letters, The (The 13th Reality #1) by James Dashner
K - Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson
L - Life & Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentlemen by Laurence Sterne
M - Mildred Pierce by James M. Cain
N - Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
O - Other Voices, Other Rooms by Truman Capote
P - Postmistress, The by Sarah Blake
Q - QB VII by Leon Uris
R - Ruby in the Smoke, The (Sally Lockhart #1) by Philip Pullman
S - Snow Flower & the Secret Fan by Lisa See
T - Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
U - Uncle Silas by Joseph Sheridan le Fanu
V - Vanishing of Katharina Linden, The by Helen Grant
W - Witches of East End by Melissa de la Cruz
X - Xenocide (Ender's Saga #3) by Orson Scott Card
Y - Year of the Flood, The by Margaret Atwood [note: Read Oryx & Crake first]
Z - Zombie, Ohio by Scott Kenemore
Friday, November 11, 2011
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Psycho Analysis?
Chose another flick from the list that's been hanging out in the NF queue for awhile: The Men who Stare at Goats. It was humorous and a little bizarre, but overall it wasn't bad. Despite the title, it had very little to do with staring at goats. Additionally, staring at goats ended up being the path to the dark side rather than a technique that they actually practiced--especially since the goats ended up dead and the main character, Lynn, felt bad about having to kill even one. Very humane, but typical behavior for Earth-loving, Hippie-type people--which I don't disagree with.
Essentially, the film is about a group of military (Army) being trained to "kill" by means of psychic powers. They refer to themselves as Jedi and make up the New Earth unit. Their CO is a hippie who had a bad experience in Nam that lead him to believe that man could find better ways to fight wars--by not fighting. He teaches his unit to psychically disarm their opponents in order to gain the upper-hand, though once they have the upper-hand, they don't kill the enemy. Mostly, the result involves some dancing and a little bit of LSD.
In reality, even though one could never psychically control the enemy, an ethical debate about war and power could easily arise from the plot and character interactions of this film.
Essentially, the film is about a group of military (Army) being trained to "kill" by means of psychic powers. They refer to themselves as Jedi and make up the New Earth unit. Their CO is a hippie who had a bad experience in Nam that lead him to believe that man could find better ways to fight wars--by not fighting. He teaches his unit to psychically disarm their opponents in order to gain the upper-hand, though once they have the upper-hand, they don't kill the enemy. Mostly, the result involves some dancing and a little bit of LSD.
In reality, even though one could never psychically control the enemy, an ethical debate about war and power could easily arise from the plot and character interactions of this film.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Monday, April 4, 2011
Foreign Film?
So randomly, I decided to watch something that's been in my NetFlix queue for about a year now: The Price of Milk. I'm quite enjoying the randomness of it...it started out with a man, Rob, getting out of bed and going outside, where his girlfriend, Lucinda, is trying to repair their house--which is worse than a mobile home. During the night, the wall has fallen down. Rob then goes to work at his dairy farm where he sees his friend Bernie and his dog, Nigel. Nigel has agoraphobia and lives in a cardboard box, which has the bottom cut out of it so that he can run around. As the day ends, Rob goes home to where Lucinda has made him a nice dinner. They eat while taking a bath--the tub is in the front yard--and do the dishes in the bath water (while they're still in the tub btw). Lucinda finds an engagement ring at the bottom of the tub and Rob slips it on her finger. Sigh...
The next day, Lucinda is driving down the road, not paying attention to where she's going because she's looking at the ring, when suddenly she runs over an old lady. The old lady gets up and walks away, calling to Lucinda to keep warm over her shoulder.
When Lucinda finally gets downtown, she goes to a shop to see her friend, Drosophola, who tells Lucinda that she'd better start a fight with Rob so that they can keep their relationship alive--whatever that means. The two then get in the car and drive away.
As they are driving down a different road (not the one where L hit the old lady), they take a turn too sharply and roll the car. They then proceed to smoke a joint while dangling upside down and waiting for someone to come along and help them. They continue their conversation about Lucinda's relationship with Rob and the upcoming nuptials. Pretty soon someone else takes the turn too sharply and rolls their car right into place beside the girls. Turns out it's Bernie. They all get out of their respected rolled-vehicles and exchange kisses. Bernie trots off to get his tractor. You assume that this is so that he can right the rolled cars, but the next shot shows Lucinda driving the tractor home across the cow pasture.
That night as Rob and Lucinda are asleep in bed, Lucinda can feel their quilt slipping off her shoulders. She rolls over and tells Rob to stop stealing the covers and then falls back asleep. The quilt starts to slip away again, when the camera pulls back and you see and old lady's hand pulling it away. In the background, you can see a large group of men watching--the Maori golf club. Did I mention that the story takes place in New Zealand? Next things really start to get good. Now go watch it. It's quite lovely.
The next day, Lucinda is driving down the road, not paying attention to where she's going because she's looking at the ring, when suddenly she runs over an old lady. The old lady gets up and walks away, calling to Lucinda to keep warm over her shoulder.
When Lucinda finally gets downtown, she goes to a shop to see her friend, Drosophola, who tells Lucinda that she'd better start a fight with Rob so that they can keep their relationship alive--whatever that means. The two then get in the car and drive away.
As they are driving down a different road (not the one where L hit the old lady), they take a turn too sharply and roll the car. They then proceed to smoke a joint while dangling upside down and waiting for someone to come along and help them. They continue their conversation about Lucinda's relationship with Rob and the upcoming nuptials. Pretty soon someone else takes the turn too sharply and rolls their car right into place beside the girls. Turns out it's Bernie. They all get out of their respected rolled-vehicles and exchange kisses. Bernie trots off to get his tractor. You assume that this is so that he can right the rolled cars, but the next shot shows Lucinda driving the tractor home across the cow pasture.
That night as Rob and Lucinda are asleep in bed, Lucinda can feel their quilt slipping off her shoulders. She rolls over and tells Rob to stop stealing the covers and then falls back asleep. The quilt starts to slip away again, when the camera pulls back and you see and old lady's hand pulling it away. In the background, you can see a large group of men watching--the Maori golf club. Did I mention that the story takes place in New Zealand? Next things really start to get good. Now go watch it. It's quite lovely.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Consider Super-Human Mutant-Powers
Without really trying, I have always tended towards Entropy--the principle that Matter if left alone, without intelligent interaction, will inevitably tends towards Chaos.
Background: My friends, JRW, CDT (Counselor Deanna Troi, which is Dunner's Star Trek name), ORR (Original-Recipe-Rob) and I had an amazing conversation about this on the way to lunch the other day. (We were going to lunch at Greg's at UVU for Wild Game day. We ate alligator.) It occurred to me that there was a part in the Entropy puzzle that I was missing--the part about intelligent interaction. (You see, JRW is a Physics and Math wiz, and he has the challenge of explaining Physics to me without the Math--I only allow him to use logical statements that I can pick apart and question.) I posed the scenario: Let's pretend that there's a rock in a desert-vacuum and nothing is acting on it. How can it move towards chaos? ORR posited that nothing can be in a purely vacuous state, and JRW responded that the assumption is that in order for Entropy to occur there has to be intelligent interaction (people, primates, etc.) acting upon it. So I posed my next scenario: Let's pretend that the rock is sitting in the desert without any people around it and it is not in a vacuum. It only has the natural elements (i.e. rain and wind) acting on it and it eventually turns into sand and joins the rest of the sand in the desert. CDT decided that sand is more organized than a rock. I decided that its an example of perfect harmony.
Present Time: As I look back on this, I now have to ask: how can chaos and harmony exist in the same sphere? Maybe the answer to this question will give me some indication as to how I myself can exist in the same sphere. How is it that I can always tend toward Entropy, but yet I never explode. Though I may not be completely satisfied with everything in my life, I'm not "stark raving mad" and at times I do find myself content--maybe even experiencing a little bit of harmony. Wow.
Journal: As I mentioned before, we were on our way to a Wild Game day at Greg's at UVU. Greg's is the restaurant belonging to the Culinary Arts students at UVU, every week their assignment is to present a tasting menu, a selection of 5-6 courses that could be reproduced as an entree. Gourmands may experience the students' masterpieces for a mere $10. My friend, McBourne, who organized the event, calls this the best kept secret of Utah County. Needless to say, he was right.
The Wild Game menu consisted of dishes made from alligator, elk, buffalo/bison, pheasant, and venison. They were all quite yummy! Here's a pic of how the alli was presented:
Background: My friends, JRW, CDT (Counselor Deanna Troi, which is Dunner's Star Trek name), ORR (Original-Recipe-Rob) and I had an amazing conversation about this on the way to lunch the other day. (We were going to lunch at Greg's at UVU for Wild Game day. We ate alligator.) It occurred to me that there was a part in the Entropy puzzle that I was missing--the part about intelligent interaction. (You see, JRW is a Physics and Math wiz, and he has the challenge of explaining Physics to me without the Math--I only allow him to use logical statements that I can pick apart and question.) I posed the scenario: Let's pretend that there's a rock in a desert-vacuum and nothing is acting on it. How can it move towards chaos? ORR posited that nothing can be in a purely vacuous state, and JRW responded that the assumption is that in order for Entropy to occur there has to be intelligent interaction (people, primates, etc.) acting upon it. So I posed my next scenario: Let's pretend that the rock is sitting in the desert without any people around it and it is not in a vacuum. It only has the natural elements (i.e. rain and wind) acting on it and it eventually turns into sand and joins the rest of the sand in the desert. CDT decided that sand is more organized than a rock. I decided that its an example of perfect harmony.
Present Time: As I look back on this, I now have to ask: how can chaos and harmony exist in the same sphere? Maybe the answer to this question will give me some indication as to how I myself can exist in the same sphere. How is it that I can always tend toward Entropy, but yet I never explode. Though I may not be completely satisfied with everything in my life, I'm not "stark raving mad" and at times I do find myself content--maybe even experiencing a little bit of harmony. Wow.
Journal: As I mentioned before, we were on our way to a Wild Game day at Greg's at UVU. Greg's is the restaurant belonging to the Culinary Arts students at UVU, every week their assignment is to present a tasting menu, a selection of 5-6 courses that could be reproduced as an entree. Gourmands may experience the students' masterpieces for a mere $10. My friend, McBourne, who organized the event, calls this the best kept secret of Utah County. Needless to say, he was right.
The Wild Game menu consisted of dishes made from alligator, elk, buffalo/bison, pheasant, and venison. They were all quite yummy! Here's a pic of how the alli was presented:
Friday, May 7, 2010
We're Practicing Being Nice
This morning on the Radio (RFH) they were having a contest to find the best song sung by moms to their kids. The catch was that you had to sing the song that your mom sang to you when you were a kid--in other words, you couldn't be calling to sing a song that you sing to your kids. It had to be the other way around. Since I was driving, and since I really didn't want to sing on the radio, I found the song that my mom used to sing to me on YouTube and I'm posting it here:
This song is from a movie called Reds. I've seen it but can't really remember the plot or anything remarkable about the movie--except that my mom used to sing this song to me--mostly to teach my brothers and me a lesson when we were misbehaving and driving her crazy. We used to fight like cats and dogs...we still do sometimes...and so she would sing us this song and make us sit on the couch and hold hands until we could be nice to each other. I plan on carrying on this tradition one day during the next mellenium when I have kids of my own....
This song is from a movie called Reds. I've seen it but can't really remember the plot or anything remarkable about the movie--except that my mom used to sing this song to me--mostly to teach my brothers and me a lesson when we were misbehaving and driving her crazy. We used to fight like cats and dogs...we still do sometimes...and so she would sing us this song and make us sit on the couch and hold hands until we could be nice to each other. I plan on carrying on this tradition one day during the next mellenium when I have kids of my own....
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Heaven Sent....
I don't know about the rest of you, but I can always use a giant cupcake. I found this picture on a Wilton blog called...something about cupcakes, but I can't remember what...So click here to see it.
I would like to celebrate my birthday this year with a giant pink cupcake! First I'll buy the pan, and then I'll mix up the cake, and then I'll frost it, and then I'll decorate it all pretty, and then I'll chop it up, and then I'll send a giant piece to my best friend, April Dawn, 'cause I'm a dirty-rotten-friend and haven't called her for her birthday yet. It was on Monday, and I thought about it all last week, and then when Monday came, it was such a Monday that I went home and went to bed and pretended like it was over. Sometimes I wish it was over more often!
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