Murder and Survival

"I don't care what does it: I don't care if it's the tension, the fear, the 'enemy'… it's murder. We are occupied by murderers."

--River

I sat and read her account of the Marine shooting the Iraqi in the Fallujah mosque in horror and could hardly believe it was real. I seriously was thinking, is this real? Could this be made up?

Then I followed the link she provides to Yahoo news' account of it. Apparently, a group of Marines entered a Mosque where some wounded Iraqis had been left behind, argued about whether one was faking death or not, and then shot him.

" 'He's dead now,' a Marine is heard saying...

Sites reported a Marine in the same unit had been killed just a day earlier when he tended to the booby-trapped dead body of an insurgent.

NBC reported that the Marine seen shooting the wounded Iraqi had himself been shot in the face the day before, but quickly returned to duty."

I don't know much about war. Okay, basically nothing. But there are enough clues in that Yahoo article to make me think this is not as simple a case as it sounds. At least for me, when I try to put myself in that Marine's shoes, I don't know what would happen. A lot of people argue that killing is never okay. And, on the surface, their argument makes perfect sense. God made human life sacred; He made us to live, not to kill and be killed.

But can you really say that if someone's being murdered outside your front door, you should do nothing? Spare the murderer because to do otherwise makes you like him? Let him kill, and possibly keep killing?

Now I realize the situation in the mosque is not the same. Here, it's more an issue of your own survival--do you risk it and hope the other guy is friendly or dead or not booby-trapped? It's more than your own survival at stake; it's the survival of the men with you, who's lives are just as valuable as yours and the Iraqi on the ground.

Who's life do you choose?

I'm also not claiming the guy did everything right. He does sound indifferent to death he just caused and he probably is. It's a pretty hard state to avoid if you get into war--not that you shouldn't fight it, resist becoming cold-blooded, but you can pretty well guarantee that it's going to be a continual struggle, a constant danger.

I don't know what the Marine should have done. I don't know what I would have done. I just don't believe it's as simple as murder, or necessarily comparable with a psychopathic killer, as River does.

I will say this. I have no personal experience with war, as I said. In that department, she very definitely wins out over me. I don't know what it is like for her right now, living in the midst of all that. I would think scary beyond belief. I just think there is more to the shooting than she has perhaps considered.

I think Owen West and Phillip Carter have some thought-provoking stuff to say on the subject, especially as regards the Iraqi's killing compared to that of Margaret Hassan.

First love

What I wanted to say was that I was trying to focus on my First Love, but I was afraid it'd come across as holier-than-thou, which is not how I meant it. Honestly, it encourages me to speak in a positive way about what I should be focusing on (even if I'm not doing a great job of focusing on it right now). I think it's a good way to help me refocus.

I've been neglecting Him horribly, and sometimes I feel it. Sometimes I'm too hardhearted for that, admittedly, but sometimes--sometimes--I remember and feel the lack of Him. Miss Him a little bit.

My parents tell me that they want me to get married, that they want a "good" life for me, meaning a married life. They say that I don't seem to think positively enough about my chances of getting married. But honestly, the way I see it, yes, I want to get married, and maybe I'm not "positive enough" about my chances (meaning I'm not absolutely sure it'll happen), but what makes sense to me is to be open to whatever life God gives me, to focus on Him, devote myself to Him and whatever blessings He chooses to add to my life He'll add. That I think is the beauty--and the scariness--of submission. That I give my life up to Him and let Him decide what to give me, let Him decide what's best for me. And then I truly will have a good life, by the only standard that matters.

Am I wrong to think this way? Am I being too idealistic or naive? Maybe, but I think I'm also right. Idealism and naivete are not always off-track. Sometimes there's a reason for them, at least for the idealism. God wants His best for us, and the world may think it's idealistic, but God is a God of perfection, no? Of ideals, you might say. If anyone can reach the ideal--true perfection--He can.

And He can, because He is.
(Matt 6:25-34)

Trying Those Legs Out

"...there comes a time when you have to see, if only for a few hours, whether it's true, what you think, whether your child has more strength than he himself knows."

I wonder if this isn't how God feels, those times when he lets us stumble and fall down, get up, and try those legs out again.

Unlike Mommy, he never has to leave our side.

Read the whole thing, if you get the chance. It's lovely.

Learning to Crawl

I saw "The Day After Tomorrow" several weeks ago now and enjoyed it. It wasn't a great movie, but...I enjoyed it. I've said before I don't know much about movie critiquing, but--perhaps because of the writers' course I've been taking--I could identify one or two flaws in it. But I still liked it and think I'd like to see it again.

Two things I took away from this movie. I believe I heard one of the scientists make the remarkable comment that storms are imbalances that rage until they are corrected.

Until they are corrected. Hm. You mean they don't just fix themselves? I always thought they just sort of...dissipated. If this piece of information is right (I did look around online trying to find something to corroborate this but no luck so far), then my guess is if storms don't just go away, then some opposing force somehow rights the balance and..."fixes" things. (Of course, it might be that the "opposing force" is within them, in which case it could be argued that they do indeed "fix" themselves. I don't know much about storms, okay?) The point is they don't just go away, not without the weather being put back on track, the balance being restored. Something has to happen to fix what's wrong, to correct the balance.

I remember when I prayed fervently for God to help me or heal me or something like that. I don't remember now for sure but it was almost as if I expected him to wave a hand over the problems in my life and say, "Be gone!" To fix me with the snap of a finger so that I was good as new, just like before. After all, the Bible says "if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation" (2 Cor 5:17); "he has crossed over from death to life" (John 5:24). That sounds pretty immediate to me. And it is.

Now wait a minute, this sounds like a discrepancy. Either God heals you immediately or he doesn't. My answer is yes and no. But the yes is the bigger. When you renounce old ways and take on new ways in the obedience of faith, God answers you immediately; he quite literally makes you new. You are reborn, like a new, perfect baby. No more sin, no more problems. That's on the truer, spiritual level. You are brand new.

In the physical world I think he does something quite different.

I remember days or months after those fervent prayers realizing it wasn't going to be so easy. God was't going to go 1-2-3 snap! and I'm better. It's still a hard thing for me to understand, so many years later, and as recently as within the last two years, I've pleaded with God just to come to me, to tell me in a vision what to do. I haven't totally given up wishing he would.

I think I understand why he doesn't. I think you probably know the answer, too, unpleasant as it is. He's letting us grow. Letting us learn to crawl. You don't keep carrying a child around for the rest of his life. At some point, you start letting him--and he starts trying--to lift his head, to sit up, to crawl, to walk--and someday, to run.

Imagine if you got yourself in a real fix. Tangled up so deeply in a bad situation that you can't see the way out. (Not hard to imagine for most of us.) What would happen if God waved his hand over you and said, "Be healed!" and reverted you back to good as new, just like that? Be a lot easier, certainly, yes. But what else? Would you see how you got from safe on dry ground to down in the pit to dry ground again? Would you even know what you did wrong to begin with, so you could avoid doing it again?

How can we ever expect to learn if we're not given the chance to do things for ourselves? I'm not saying God stands back in the theater seats and lets us do it all on our own. Far from it. I believe he's active and involved, even in the physical world--but, at the same time, he's letting us learn to crawl.

Storms don't just go away. You can take my word for that. When your life's thrown out of balance and everything's out of whack is maybe when you need to get a hold of some opposing forces--something to oppose the dark and stormy night in your life--or more specifically Someone. The truth is, we don't have enough strength, enough force on our own, in and of ourselves. We supply the willingness. God supplies the strength.

The last line (?) of the movie supplied the other half, the closure; a beautiful dovetail completing the earlier statement. Two astronauts who've been overlooking the turmoil on Earth throughout the storm from space. After the storm, in the final moments of the movie, one says to the other, "Have you ever seen the air so clear?"

Storms don't go away on their own. They take labor and effort, sometimes pain and sacrifice, to be corrected. But, when you've done the work, put in the time--you've never seen the air so clear in your life.

Flame-retardant Fish

I guess they don't have to worry about catching fire, anyway, right? Oh, right. They live in...water.

"Farmed salmon, already found to carry higher levels than wild salmon of chemicals such as PCBs, may also contain higher levels of flame-retardants, environmental researchers said on Wednesday."

Flame-retardant, eh? This could have potential. Maybe it's time we all started eating more salmon--farmed salmon, that is.

On the other hand, there's argument about whether these same chemicals--called PBDEs--cause cancer.

"If you're a chemist and you draw the structure, they look a lot like PCBs."

Well, thanks a lot, mister! Get my hopes up, why don't you?

Retired Villains and their Gardens

I don't have anything intelligent to say except wow (if that counts as intelligent). I guess all my life I've seen movies or read books with the bad guys and villains and so forth (it may sound cliche but that's what they are), but to see a glimpse of their downfall in real life and how...humble it is--it's amazing.

Archaic Offices and Bad Puns

"I am a national fool now. It is the best thing a man can be." I think I like that.

England has reinstated the office of court jester after a 355-year break--er, gap. Hmm. If you ask me, it's all just an excuse for people to crank out a load of bad puns. "Has head for the job" indeed.

Also, if you want to know how the whole jester thing got started in the first place, you might be interested to know that, according to Chambers' Book of Days, "the female official fool had precedence of the male court and household jester." (Scroll down to "A Supplementary Chapter to the 'History of Court Fools.'") Hmm. I'm not sure whether to be insulted or pleased.

Note: I should have mentioned that The Book of Days, according to the people who undertook to put it online, is a "must-read for anyone aspiring to understand history as our forefathers saw it." In other words, without having delved into it much, I don't personally know how accurate any given part of it is. Probably the people who run the site could tell you that.

Princess Bride Quotes Are Universal...

...as Tahi has said before me.

Just more proof that The Princess Bride is the best movie ever.

Descartes

The following is in response to a post by Xeno in response to a post of mine ('fraid you'll have to scroll down; it's "Kinship," but it's hardly worth searching for; it's barely a note).

Ever since I learned the phrase "I think therefore I am" I have liked Descartes.

Without knowing anything else about him, I am grateful for knowing that there's someone else out there who's wondered about the certainty of their senses--because I've gone down that pathway and was scared and bewildered when I couldn't think of a good answer to the problem. I've since found a solution that satisfies me and I may go into it some other time.

And, like Xeno said, Descartes' strongest argument is the one he is most famous for, and the one I like him for.

Yet I will admit that up until I posted the Descartes link, I hadn't actually read anything by him (except for some on that page), and up to the present I have read nothing more by him. I also have to agree that, when he goes into his spiel about the conception of the thing being the proof of its existence, I get a little lost. After all, just because I can conceive of a ten-legged purple polka-dotted lizard doesn't mean one exists. So if he means it in that sense, I can't agree.

It's possible there are other explanations that can hold up Descartes' claim, but I'm not real sure about them, and, frankly, I'd rather deal with the other issue of his that Xeno dealt with.

"To which I added that, since I knew some perfections which I did not possess, I was not the only being who existed, but that there must of necessity be some other being, more perfect, on whom I depended, and from whom I had acquired all that I possessed; for if I had existed alone and independent of all other, so that I had of myself all this little whereby I participated in the Perfect Being, I should have been able to have in myself all those other qualities which I knew myself to lack, and so to be infinite, eternal, immutable, omniscient, almighty--in fine, to possess all the perfections which I could observe in God."

As Xeno put it,

"In other words, God taught him everything he knows, and if he had NOT learned all this good stuff from God, then he himself must in fact be God, because he would somehow have attained perfection merely by being able to conceive of it without help. Since he's clearly not God, God exists."

I have a different take on this paragraph. I would restate Descartes this way: I must exist because I'm sitting here thinking; whether physical body or spirit or mere figment of someone's imagination, I've got a consciousness floating around and that exists. Since I exist, yet find myself questioning, ignorant, and looking for answers, I must not be omniscient. I can't do just anything so I'm not all-powerful, and my memory doesn't go on forever so it would seem I have a definite beginning, therefore, not eternal--finite rather than infinite. If this is all true, I'm not independent, self-sustaining, or whatever word you want to use. The only alternative to being independent is dependent. But on what? On something, somewhere, or someone who is, in fact, independent. That's God. Since something (me) can't come from nothing, God must exist.

I can't say for sure this is what Descartes is saying; I don't claim to understand everything I read (especially with the murderous way he writes--if you can make him out better, I commend you) but it sounds like it's approximately what he's saying to me. If it isn't what he's saying and it's not what he believes then I guess I think differently from him because the previous paragraph is not just what I think he's saying, but also my own personal belief. Also, when he says that God is "from whom I had acquired all that I possessed," I don't think he necessarily means every thought in his head was put there directly by God, but more along the lines that God put in him the ability to think. At least--again--it is what I would argue; whether or not it is what he actually means I can't be sure. But I think it fits.

Well, this is long, and I apologize for taking so long to get it up; there is no real excuse, except my difficulty with Descartes' writing style and my unfortunate tendency to procrastinate (something I am trying to improve upon).

I look forward to seeing what else you write, Xeno. I've tended to fancy myself of a philosophical mind, but after dealing with just a little of what some of these philosopher-types can come up with, I tend to want to rethink that assumption. :) But I still like the subject--at least a venture into the basics, because I think it can be important, or at least very useful.

Brotherdom

El Bro has been sick, for the first time in a long while. He's like me; we never get sick. Which comes at a great time, what with the mad fixing around the house, cleaning, and rearranging we are doing, but it can't be helped.

I went into the living room, where he sleeps these days, and asked if he minded me in there and he said no, he liked the company. So then I felt bad for sitting there and ignoring him while I studied.

In an unexpected twist, after being sick all weekend and all day, he was suddenly bouncing off the walls this evening; quite hilarious.

I think that means he's getting better.

Kinship

There is something about reading others' thoughts, whether they live now or lived some time long ago, and finding ideas that make sense to you, similar struggles expressed...a kinship of reason.

Even better is when they propose ideas you hadn't thought of yet.

Honestly I've done very little of this kind of reading, but I think I need to. They might help me sort out some ideas that I don't understand.

Return of Spidey

Went to see Spider-Man 2 yesterday and would have written about it then but subject to my new resolution, no playing before doing important things. Or, at least, some important things. (Got to start somewhere, haven't I?) So, since I slept most of the evening (due to a late night the night before), did some obligatory cleaning (not my idea), and then went to bed again, I never got to the important stuff, so I never got to the Spidey post.

This isn't really a review, since I a) am not going to rehash the whole film, b) miss too many important things when I watch movies to be a discerning reviewer, and c) don't care.

I loved it. I was really afraid it would just stress me out and depress me with all the angst over Mary Jane and everything, so going in I was a little worried. See, I'm perfectly happy for the hero to get beat up or even go through painful inner turmoil. Preferably both. I have my limits but in my (possibly sadistic) way I enjoy these things. What I don't like is public humiliation. I didn't grow up watching especially brutal or graphic stuff but the things I have seen usually don't bother me exceedingly. You know the movie scene that really affected me? In "Power of One," when one of the older kids spit on the main character, PK. I've never been slapped in the face, but it was almost like getting personally slapped in the face. No, I think worse because what was so awful was how degrading and humiliating it was. The first Spider-Man, while I enjoyed it, was slightly painful, what with all the humiliations and embarrassments Peter had to go through. Maybe it says something about me as a person, but I loathe watching public humiliation.

I don't mean I can't stand anything uncomfortable or embarrassing. I don't like watching it happen in real life, but in a story I think I can handle a certain amount. But what drains me in a movie--stresses me out--is watching lots embarrassment or--worse--outright humiliation. If it's on TV, I might end up switching away--to something more wholesome and relaxing, like someone getting beat up.

So I was expecting the same sort of thing--maybe worse--for Spidey 2. I'm not sure if this movie was less humiliating for Peter (while still being painful in a way that made its ultimate resolution more satisfying) or if it's just that the ending made up for it for me. At any rate, it was also peppered with jokes that made you think about what it would really be like to be Spider-Man. I loved these for the realism they added to the film and Peter's life.

All that to say, I came out of the film in an old-fashioned good-movie-euphoria. When I was a kid, we didn't go to the movies lots. When we did, the dark theater, the lights dimming--it was a magical experience, to use a cliche entirely seriously. Nowadays we watch movies more often and I'm afraid it may be fun but I really don't get that sense of "magic" anymore. Probably 'cos I go often enough that the sense of mystery and rare adventure just isn't there. Occasionally a movie will leave me euphoric. I don't think that's happened in a couple of years, even with Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, X-men and all the other Scifi/Fantasy movies that have come out in that time. I liked all those movies, but I can't remember getting a high out of any of them. Maybe a little one with some of them. I think Azkaban came close.

I guess as much as I liked all those movies, this is the one that most got under my skin. It takes more than pure entertainment to make a movie stay with me; it takes that rare magic formula--good movie-making plus characters and situations that touch me and inspire me, or at least give me a little hope. Before you beat me, let me say that I think all of the above mentioned had that, to greater and lesser degrees. Or, at least, good enough to fool me. But either I'm undergoing amnesia or this is the one that most got under my skin; the one I could best relate to right now. As corny as it sounds, Spider-Man 2 gave me a little bit of hope. I'll defend that statement in another post, since this one is getting so long.

So, finally, my "list"--er, ok, two of the main reasons I liked Spider-Man 2. Here be Spoilers.

1) Spider-Man wasn't Superman--er, I mean he wasn't perfect. "Ordinary" people could help him. They had this in the first movie, when the people he was trying to save (in the subway car thingy?) threw rocks at the Green Goblin and told him to leave Spider-Man alone. They had it in 2 in what I think for me was the most moving scene of the movie, when Peter, unconscious and unmasked, was carried over the heads of the train passengers he'd just saved and gently laid down on the floor and they saw him face-to-face for the first time. ("He's just a kid. No older than my son.") Which makes me think to myself: there may be bad guys out there, but there are also good ones. Big--and small, like the two little kids who then came up to him after he'd woken up and offered him back his mask. ("We won't tell.")

2) MJ had a backbone. Now I was never a fan of Mary Jane. I didn't watch the cartoon regularly, but when I did, she got on my nerves. I didn't like her much better in the first movie. In this one, she didn't get on my nerves as much. She was just "okay." Until she started showing some good sense I couldn't ignore.
a) When Pete said he'd changed, she didn't go flying back into his arms. It took her some time to think about it.
b) She didn't go all "Charlie's Angels" and beat up the bad guy, but she did try to sneak up on him and hit him upside the head. More guts than I've probably got.
c) She saved Peter in her own way. Peter thought he had to either be Spider-Man and save everybody all the time or be Peter Parker and turn his back on other people. While I think a little balance in his life might've helped in this respect (you can't save everybody), MJ's gift to him was that, even if you do think you have to be there for everybody, you don't have to give up everything, or go it alone. Probably my favorite line of the movie was hers: "Isn't it about time somebody saved you?" It was also nice to remember that while we girls may not be much in the beating-up-villains department (I'm talking real-life here), we can "save" (or at least help) other people in our own way.

So here's to MJ and all the other unknown, part-time heroes of the world.

(Not to diss Pete...)

Sending shock waves...

...through the eating community?

*Snort.* So dramatic.

Update: Click on "Meet the Eaters" on the right below the picture and then the first one--Takeru Kobayashi--is where I meant the link to go (the website won't let it for some reason).

A Beauty Contest!

For goats?

I found the link just stumbling around, surfing through Blogger and I just had to post this, considering the key role goats play in the chain story. No one knows how significant goats really are.

Starting again

Everybody has their own ideas about what they should build at Ground Zero. I remember thinking a tall slim tower taller than the older ones but perhaps more a monument than an actual building that holds people. I don't know; maybe the idea was a cop-out. At any rate, what they're doing looks good, though I don't know all the details.

Update: I realize the link is wrong. I will fix it as soon as I get a chance.
Ok, I fixed it.

Cowboy Boots and Southern Twangs

I have to write about something very momentous, something that occurred in my life just this past Friday.

I got cowboy boots. And when I say cowboy, I mean cowboy boots. They're guys' shoes. They didn't have anything cool (or practically anything at all) for girls, though they did have some "fabulous" thigh-high Cruella De Ville boots. Yikes. Since I'm not preoccupied with looking like some kind of grand arch-villainess and spawn of children's nightmares, I thought I'd pass.

The ones I got are nothing fancy, they're just good solid work boots. I'm just relieved they fit me at all; I got one of the smallest sizes they offered (after trying on my brother's shoes) and they're just about right.

I'm not a cowgirl. I never have been. My only concession to my southernhood is the fact that I say "yall" and that--at least according to Cris--I sound southern in my emails, but I was once told if I didn't say "yall" I wouldn't sound Texan at all. I can't stand country music, I don't like western wear, I hate barbecue, and I've never owned a pair of cowboy boots in my life. Until now.

Of course I haven't escaped living in the South without a few marks of it rubbing off on me. I do actually like a few country songs; I just don't like the typical "My wife left me, my dog left me, my truck left me" songs. And I hate that twangy, whiny instrument--or whatever it is--they put in some country songs. And I don't mean the guitar. Well, if it's a guitar that's doing it, I don't blame all guitars. It's just a tragic perversion of an otherwise beautiful instrument. Aside from that, I sort of like barbecue sauce; I just don't like the typical way barbecue is prepared. I have had far, far too many family reunion experiences composed of the stuff, and I am sick of it.

My reasons for suddenly going against all that is sacred and tradition to me, and buying a pair of cowboy boots? Well, my motives are partly practical. I wanted something I could go hiking and wandering in and know that if a snake tries to bite my ankle it'll get nothing but a mouthful of leather. I've read that's the best protection against snakes is just a pair of boots since they are most likely to aim for your ankles (considering anything else is a bit above their altitude). I was looking at regular non-cowboy boots at first, and then I found combat boots and I thought that would be cool, but then I stumbled on some cowboy boots and got to thinking. Cowboy boots are kind of cool sometimes; it might be fun to have some. Of course the ones I really wanted were gorgeous--a beautiful red color and...ostrich skin? Whatever; they were $300, and that's a little out of my league.

So now I have cowboy boots. Is this the first step down a slippery slope toward cowboy--er, cowgirldom? We shall see.

Tahi Logic

"I want to play Risk."
"No, you don't; you just think you do."

My older sister, Tahi, used to use this sort of logic on me and it used to crack me up. Logic does that to me, especially when misused. After all, I am of the firm belief you can find a way to reason out anything, even if you're wrong. Anyway, I find myself being confronted with this same sort of reasoning again recently, by none other than Cris, who has been known to go to great lengths to persuade me I'm hungry when I'm not; I want ice cream when I don't.

Fortunately, I am immune to such Jedi mind tricks.

A "Little" Explanation

Before yesterday I didn't think I needed to--well, I didn't see any reason to explain what I do with this blog. I mean, this has been my own little house of solitude up till now. However, after yesterday, I decided it might be good to provide a small explanation of the "remodeling" (okay--tinkering) I've done in the past couple of weeks--for anyone who might have somehow visited this site on their own before now. And, actually--now that I think about it--for those of you I've directed here recently, as well.

Originally this was a "private" blog--in the sense that anyone who knew me was not given the secret behind-your-back, don't-forget-to-cross-your-toes handshake. Okay, I made that up. I mean the site address. The point is, this was just a little outlet just for me. And any random strangers that happened by. Because, you know, of course, they don't count.

But the beginning of last week, I think it was, I realized something I already knew. Sloppy writing breeds sloppy thinking (and vice versa), as an essay by George Orwell once clarified for me. And while I think there's nothing wrong with the type of spilling I did before, I decided it might be more effective to focus my energy and reason on really trying to analyze some of the things in my life; break them down so I understand them better.

Well, I don't really remember my thought processes after this point too well, but suffice it to say that I somehow decided to open this place up to anyone, no secret handshake required, and try to write here more thoroughly? Carefully? Responsibly? (Heh--"Think responsibly." Hey, I kinda like that. Has a nice ring to it...) Ironically, this probably means not posting some of the just-for-me essays I was originally planning to write. But I still intend to write them. And it is the hope that I have in that process that has kept me hopeful, at the least--on a high, at the most--for the past two weeks--since I got back from Spring Break.

Of course, having said all that, I am not so sure how far I want to go with the "thorough-writing" idea, for one thing, because I am a perfectionist and if I wait till it is perfect, I will never post it. (Just in case you read something, and go, "That's thorough writing??")

I have tried pretty hard not to sound cryptic about my journal-writing habits. The truth is there are just some things I am not comfortable sharing. But just because I have taken all that stuff down doesn't automatically mean I'm unwilling to talk. I actually am a person who usually likes to share. I don't know how else to say this, but if you want to know, ask--just please don't take it personally if, for whatever reason, I decline.

Oh, and by the way: do me a favor and go visit Possumblog--Terry sent me a nice note yesterday, which actually prompted this whole post; written so that, should he or anybody else ever happen to drop by unexpectedly again, they would know what was going on.

I have the One Ring.

Wah!* I just thought you should know.

No, my younger sis and I saw Lord of the Rings Risk at Wal-mart a few months back. Well. I like Risk. And I like Lord of the Rings! So. We bought it. :D Plus, I like maps--I'm not quite sure why. Maybe just because I love the natural world...? Anyway, we've only actually played it once in two months. (Well, I've only played it once.) But she likes to keep it in her room to look at the map. Which I don't mind. I can look at the map later. But it comes with the One Ring. (Okay, okay--of a million other cheap manufactured ones.)

Actually, when I first saw it, I was a little dissapointed that it looked sort of, well, um, crummy. (I know, I know--a million cheap and manufactured.) I think the main thing I wasn't expecting was to see the Elvish letters on there--I guess I was expecting it to take more its usual form of a simple gold ring. Although, having the letters on there can be cool, too. What--do I want a real-life version you can take and throw into the fire and the letters show up?

And, yes, for those of you silently (or not so silently) laughing at me from the other side of the screen, I do actually know from experience that mass-produced plastic or whatever mystery meat of the manufacturing world they use just simply does not do justice to the people of our imaginations. I mean, I saw Luke from Star Wars Monopoly. Maybe seeing it on-screen for so long made it a bit of a shock to me to see this mass-produced version.

But: I have the Ring of Power. And I've been wearing it on my right thumb (because it fits there about perfectly) and slowly wooing people to their destruction all day. Well. Okay, maybe not about that last part.


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*As in "Wahaha!" (Or, alternately, "Whahaha!") Not as in "Wah!" like a baby crying. You're just going to have to use your context clues here because I don't know any better way to spell them.

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(LUDICROUS) UPDATE (3/27/04): Upon further consideration of the first meaning of "Wah!" (as a shortening of "Wahaha!" that is), it is possible that it is evolving into a more general exclamation for me--as of excitement or surprise, for instance--and less an onomatopoeia of evil mirth. As opposed to one of righteous mirth, I suppose. ("Go use your powers for good and not for evil." Hm..I never quite thought of laughter as a weapon before.)

Yes, I am something of a "wordphile" or whatever the latest way to associate yourself with obsessive tendencies is. Hm. That could be an interesting endeavor--finding a better term, that is. I will let you know if I find something better.

I think about things too much.

I've been told that twice today. But what I want to know is, if I think so much all the time, why aren't I a genius?