To Read Makes Our Speaking English Good

Comment to this post and I will give you 5 subjects/things I associate you with. Then post this in your LJ and elaborate on the subjects given.

thekiwi   gave me these:

Fried Pickles:
Mmm, mmm good! The best state fair food ever. Also, there's a restaurant in Springdale, AR called AQ Chicken that makes the best fried dill pickles and calls them "pickelos." It's a seriously tasty snack.

Strong Women:
Badass, honest, empathetic, competent, classy, and engaging. Everyone says Joss writes "Strong Woman Characters," but actually he writes the strong characters (women) described in this awesome essay. On the real world front, strong women are everywhere just waiting to be unleashed on an unsuspecting world.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
Most Awesome Show Ever. No discussion, no arguments, no nothing. Captured my imagination many years ago and continues to relate to pretty much everything I think about and/or do on an almost daily basis. I've seen every episode at least 10 times (and some of them even more) and even though I laugh before the lines are even spoken, I always come away from a viewing with some new angle to think about within the wider philosophy that is Buffy. It's my One True Fandom forever.

Oklahoma: 
A considerably cooler place since it decided to designate the Flaming Lips song "Do You Realize?" as official state rock song this week. Also, McNellie's Irish Pub is pretty darn cool; last week, I attended a Scotch whisky tasting and four course dinner there. It was heaven. Despite all the batshit crazy wingnuts who seem to be running the political show these days, it's pretty okay right now.

Reading, England:
What, you want me to put it into words? Okay, here goes: 

Pubs, Football, Cricket, Rain,Italy, Scotland, Ireland, Night of Infamy, Three Tuns, Mojo's, 3Sixty, RUCU, The Fez, Cider, Wales, Harry Potter, Wordsworth, Bloomsbury, Erotoplatonicism, Master and Commander, Love Actually, dance your pants off, Wessex Hall, camp, House Parties, Easter fry-up, Ring Night, Boat Party, London, Jerry Springer: The Opera, Oleanna, Aaron Eckhart, Jumpers, Hamlet, RSC in Stratford, Wednesday Night/Union Night, Marlboro Reds, Anti-Dolphin.org, Humans Rule!, Monty Python, Little Britain, Eh Eh Eh, "But I'm a lady", "but I'm the only gay in this village", "dead as a dodo, prime minister", 10 Downing Street, Trafalgar Square, Leicester Square, THE PREMIER, Lucious Malfoy, Van Helsing, Dracula, Hammer films, James Whales, the Wokies, Rahim stores, Unwins, the BP, Pimms, Alcopops, cybernetics, meteorology, the Dr.s Ivy, Mrs. Lynch, Aunty Suzanne, the Isle of Skye, Loch Ness, Dover Castle, secret wartime tunnels, Dover Beach, Tintern Abbey, the Vatican City, Florence, Venice, double decker buses, the NIGHT BUS!, Westminster Bridge (timmy's bridge).

Lunch time, lunch time. Doo-dee-doo. Snagged this morning meme from ninja_turbo 

( The I-Really-Dig-This-Lush-Perfume Meme ) </lj>

Twas tagged by the ever-fabulous jules1278 : 

* Each blogger starts with ten random facts/habits about themselves.
* Bloggers that are tagged write on their own blog about their ten things and post these rules.
* At the end of your blog, choose ten people to get tagged and list their names.

( Enter teh random weirdness about me meme )

Snagged this from shaxophile because it's just too much fun:

Shipping Meme
01. List your top 7 character ships
02. Put all of them IN ORDER of your love for them (7 to 1)
03. Say which movie/show/thing they were in
04. Supply photos for said ships

Answered and reposted for jules1278

If you're on my friends list, I want to know 36 things about you. I don't care if we never talk, or if we already know everything about each other. Short and sweet is fine ... you're on my list, so I want to know you better!

I'm nabbing this from ukelelerose, who I think nabbed it from thekiwi first.

The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed. [I wonder how the Big Read feels about English majors skewing their list. Because that's how I ended up reading a shitload of books most people never get around to (and some I kind of wish I hadn't)].

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list in your own LJ so we can try and track down these people who've read 6 and force books upon them ;-)

My Stats:

Books Read: 57

Books Loved: 12

Intend to read:  11

Thanks to thekiwi  for posting this first. I especially love that it says I should check out Buffy, Politics, and Sexuality. Ummm...do I ever blog about anything else? Okay, well maybe religion.

Your result for The Nerd? Geek? or Dork? Test...

Modern, Cool Nerd

Take The Nerd? Geek? or Dork? Test at HelloQuizzy

I don't know why I'm so obsessed with this whole John McCain and the Internet thing, but now there's an actual video of the forum during which his "deputy e-campaign manager" Mark SooHoo tells the us that:

"You don’t necessarily have to use a computer to understand, you know, how it shapes the country. … John McCain is aware of the Internet."

Well, now. That totally eases my mind. I'm completely convinced that McCain has the technical skill and progressive savvy to lead us into the 21st century that's already revoutionized the way that people interact with information. You know, because he's aware of its existence.

( Watch the video )

17 As a 1930s wife, I am Very Poor (Failure) Take the test!

Saw the official movie poster for Twilight this weekend; I've become resigned to the fact that I'll probably never have a real, grown-up looking house because my love of fandom decoration always wins. There's no way I'm not framing that Twilight poster and putting it next to my framed Buffy poster. I'll be surprised if my living room doesn't catch on fire from the hottness of having Buffy, Angel, Edward, and Bella all smoldering at one another in such close proximity.


 

1. I've come to realize that my first kiss...
was nothing to write home about; seriously, I had to think really hard to remember who it was

2. I am listening to...
Vampire Weekend


Snagged from hell_in_the_end

Tagged by ninesbiggestfan

Comment, and I will pick six of your interests on your user page. You then can post this on your journal with the answers, and spread the love of memeage!

Bloomsbury Group, Bibliomancy, Contra Dancing, Postmodern Theology, Superheroes, and The Whedonverse.

These interests are from my profile and were chosen by thekiwi

The Bloomsbury Group: Core “members” include: Virginia Woolf, John Maynard Keynes, E.M. Forster, Lytton Strachey, Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant, and Roger Fry. They were a Modern (c. 1905—1935) group of  upper class faux-Bohemian friends who, among other things, introduced post-Impressionist painting, Modern literature, and Keynesian economic theory, to England. They were deliberately and notoriously iconoclastic and often hopped in and out of one another’s beds in London’s Gordon and Russell Squares, known as the Bloomsbury District. They were all very close and yet retained the freedom to drift in and out of the group as desired. As my awesome British paper advisor Coral Howells once told me, “they were all little triangles living in squares” (How awesome is she, you ask? She actually met Duncan Grant at a party once!).

Bibliomancy: It’s an obscure form of divination in which one attempts to divine the future by opening a holy book (Bible, Torah, Koran, Greek philosophy, etc.) to a random passage. It’s complete bollocks, of course, but still a fun diversion every once in a while. I often do a “reading” on my birthday.

Contra Dancing: The most fun a Virginia gal can have in one night for under $10. It’s a sort of hybrid dance form that combines 18^th century English country steps with French royal court dances and a dash of American square dance thrown in for flavor. Keeps me in shape sans the tedious surroundings and awkward social interactions of a traditional gym.

Postmodern Theology: The aftermath of Modern Theology (writings of people like Karl Barth, Jurgen Moltmann, etc.), but still in flux as it struggles to develop a methodology. PT draws from both emerging voices (David Cunningham, Nancey Murphy) and older ones (Kierkegaard, Plato). Basically the question is: How does the Church combine progressive (Enlightenment, Modern, Postmodern) human knowledge and understandings of individual identities (sex, gender, race, class, etc.) and Church teachings/traditions of communal life and (supposedly) natural hierarchy in order to move into the 21^st century? Or, how can the Church necessarily evolve and change, yet still retain those values that make it an essential part of the greater Human Narrative and the even bigger cosmic dance of creation? Some theological methods and modes of thought floating around PT: Communal Practice, Deconstructive (ala Derrida), Reconstructive, Radical Orthodoxy, Feminist, Postmetaphysical, etc.

Superheroes: I have a thing for Christ-imagery, mostly because of the whole paradoxical “living in the world but not part of the world” thing. It’s intriguing. There are so many different kinds of superheroes with all kinds of different issues and metaphors, but they’re all struggling with the same questions: Do I use my abilities to better humanity or use them for selfish gain? Is it a choice or a moral responsibility to use my powers? What am I?

The Whedonverse: Because Buffy kicks ass, and does it in awesome shoes. Because Angel keeps looking for redemption in all the wrong places but still keeps fighting on. Because Wesley is a painfully honest look at how much a human can (and can’t) handle in one lifetime. Because Faith still has so much to learn. Because Meleka Fray asks “what’s a vampire?” Because Joss didn’t leave all the unresolved interpersonal stuff from season six in the air, he’s working through it in season eight…in comic book form. Because the thought of Drusilla and Darla locked in a wine cellar with a group of lawyers still gives me goosebumps. Because Buffy was the first crucial step toward an accurate representation of feminist responses to Power (share it!). Because Spike is freakin’ hot.

Well, I guess I walked into it :). From jules1278:

Give me a day off from work and what do I do? Something productive, like run errands or clean the kitchen? No. I stay in bed reading Twilight until 1:00 p.m. And then I catch up on e-mails and post random movie memes instead of making dinner. I'm stating this publically so it actually happens: the Christmas tree is coming down. Seriously...it's February-freaking-18th. In the meantime...

 

I did some random birthday meme stuffs:

Snagged this from thekiwi

Aaarrrgggghhhh. Still no book review. I'm rubbish at this whole "blog discipline" thing. There are just so many other things that need to be done, not to mention the fact that when I do have a spare moment on the net it's usually spent looking at all the shiny DW fanvideos while I squeal and think "Face of Boe...OMG!" Can't say my brain is functioning on its highest level (case in point: I just typed it's instead of its), but the heart is working just fine.

[01] -- Look up TEN of your favorite movies on IMDB.
[02] -- Click the "trivia" link in the sidebar.
[03] -- Post a fun and random bit of trivia from each film.
[04] -- Tag five people!

The Maltese Falcon
Sam Spade refers to Wilmer as a "gunsel", a term the censors assumed was a slang reference to a gunman. The Yiddish term "gunsel", literally "little goose", *may* be a vulgarism for homosexual (the word "faigle", or "little bird", is usually used in that manner). It is more usually an "underground" term which refers to a person who is either a "fall guy" or a "stool pigeon", in which case Spade is making both a direct and an indirect reference to Wilmer's character.