I noticed the other day that the ads on my Facebook sidebar had little X icons to let you close them. I thought, Hey, great, I will get rid of this Facebook Mobile ad. Facebook Mobile is of no use to me as I do not have that functionality on my little crappy phone. But when I clicked the X to get rid of the ad, it popped up a little notification that said, “Why don’t you like this ad? Choose reason,” and all the reasons were hurtful. They were all “Offensive” or “Uninteresting” or “Irrelevant”, and I kept picturing…
30 CommentsCategory: Misc.
So here are two things that have been weighing on my mind. I read about the Bechdel Rule recently. Alison Bechdel, author of Fun Home, says that for a movie to be worth her time, it has to meet three conditions. 1) There have to be two female characters that are 2) having a conversation about 3) something other than a guy. So I went and counted my movies, and checked to see how many of them would qualify under this rule. I own 107 movies right now, of which nine met these criteria. That’s ridiculous. (I’m counting Breakfast on…
43 CommentsI dreamed last week that I had checked out A Time to Keep Silence from the library, on Litlove’s recommendation, and was very let down by it. Instead of writing about visiting monasteries, it was all about visiting chocolate factories! In my dream, I got fed up with Fermor’s constant cutesy references to Willy Wonka, and in the end I took the book and stacked it neatly on top of the other library books I haven’t liked enough to finish. And then this all receded into the fuzzy mess of vague memory, and as happens with absurd regularity, I forgot…
27 CommentsIn case you are wondering: 1. I cried several tears of happiness. 2. I have only a very small, croaky voice left. 3. We will have to think up new hell-froze-over jokes. 4. There is much street-dancing, horn-honking, screaming, and fireworks. I BELIEVE THIS MEANS THAT LENT IS CANCELED. I AM HAPPY. WHO DAT!
17 CommentsWow, it has been a long time since I read Lord of the Rings. I own a shiny hardback box set of them, which I got on sale at Bongs & Noodles for $15, and which I now discover are the editions with fold-out maps in the back. I want to snip the maps out with careful snips and hang them around my room – except I know my snips would not be tidy, and even if they were, the maps would get all Blue-Tac-y in the corners and need to be folded up and stored next time I move,…
20 CommentsEva wants to know how we are all faring with The Hobbit, and I must say I am enjoying it a moderate amount, which is a moderate amount more than I was expecting to enjoy it. At the start of chapter 9, these are my thoughts: 1. When I started out, my reaction was exactly the same as it was when I was eight: I was so indignant on Bilbo’s behalf! How dare those nasty dwarves come in, and mess up his nice house, and eat all his food, and then be all snotty and dismissive of him when he…
20 CommentsThe Lord of the Rings Readalong started this month! Hosted by Eva, Maree, Teresa, and Clare, this readalong is starting with reading The Hobbit this month, and we will all read one of the Lord of the Rings books each month subsequently. Until we run out at the end of April, and then there will be a great mourning across the blogosphere until everyone agrees to read, I don’t know, The Silmarillion. It is not a challenge. I have absolutely put my foot down and shan’t join any more challenges than the ones I already have, and this Lord of…
26 Comments
Update on Fellowship
It is now the middle of the month – tell us all how Tolkien is treating you over at The Literary Omnivore: (omnivore = all standards) If you’ve been with us since the beginning, how do you feel about the narrator compared to the narrator in The Hobbit? BETTER. I didn’t hate the narrating style of The Hobbit or anything, but it didn’t feel like the Middle Earth world. Reading Fellowship is nice – it starts out sounding rather cheerful and hobbity, like The Hobbit, but more Lord of the Ringsy, and then it slowly gets darker and darker. By…
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