lord of the rings

on thursday, august 24th, 2006 a company of four friends ventured into the realm of the ma's on a journey thought by other men to be sheer madness and folly: to watch all three lord of the rings movies in one day. extended version.

despite the last minute breakdown of an otherwise fabulous big screen surround sound home theatre system (maybe it, too, was daunted by the task), multiple unexpected breaks for phone calls, spilled food, and "business", it was all in all good fun, good food, good people, and we all managed to go home with our eyeballs intact.

i was never much of a lord of the rings fan (uhoh..hannah's going to come get me) but i was interested in seeing all of them. there's a timelessness about the story. i'm thoroughly impressed by the special effects too. much better than the narnia movie, i thought. there are a lot of deep truths in all the movies as well, which i didn't pick up on before.

here are some memorables from "fellowship of the rings":

Frodo: I cannot do this alone.
Galadriel: You are a Ring-bearer, Frodo. To bear a Ring of Power is to be alone.
[pulls out her hand]
Galadriel: This is Nenya, the Ring of Adament. And I am it's keeper. This task was appointed to you, and if you do not find a way, no one will.
Frodo: I know what I must do, it's just that... I'm afraid to do it.
Galadriel: Even the smallest person can change the course of the future.

(but she's still kinda freaky...)

Frodo: It's a pity Bilbo didn't kill him when he had the chance.
Gandalf: Pity? It was pity that stayed Bilbo's hand. Many that live deserve death. Some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them, Frodo? Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. Even the very wise cannot see all ends. My heart tells me that Gollum has some part to play yet, for good or ill before this is over. The pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many.

Frodo: I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.
Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work in this world Frodo, besides the will of evil. Bilbo was meant to find the Ring. In which case, you were also meant to have it. And that is an encouraging thought.

(Gandalf is the coolest guy ever.)

from "the two towers":

Frodo: I can't do this Sam.
Sam: I know. It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.
Frodo: What are we holding on to Sam?
Sam: That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo... and it's worth fighting for.

(little whiney frodo would be nothing without sam. what a friend.)

Faramir: The enemy? His sense of duty was no less than yours, I deem. You wonder what his name is, where he comes from, and if he really was evil at heart. What lies or threats led him on this long march from home, or he would not rather have stayed there... in peace? War will make corpses of us all.
(a little sobering, in the light of all the middle-east crisis going on right now...)

from "the return of the king":

Sam: [Both are overcome by exhaustion] Do you remember the Shire, Mr. Frodo? It'll be spring soon. And the orchards will be in blossom. And the birds will be nesting in the hazel thicket. And they'll be sowing the summer barley in the lower fields... and eating the first of the strawberries with cream. Do you remember the taste of strawberries?
Frodo: No, Sam. I can't recall the taste of food... nor the sound of water... nor the touch of grass. I'm... naked in the dark. There's... There's nothing. No veil between me and the wheel of fire. I can see him... with my waking eyes.
Sam: Then let us be rid of it... once and for all. Come on, Mr. Frodo. I can't carry it for you... but I can carry you.
(samwise the brave saves the day...once again)

Elrond: You're outnumbered, Aragorn. You need more men.
Aragorn: There are none.
Elrond: There are those who dwell in the mountain.
Aragorn: Murderers. Traitors. You would call upon them to fight? They believe in nothing. They answer to no one.
Elrond: They will answer to the king of Gondor.
[pulls out Anduril]
Elrond: Anduril, Flame of the West, forged from the shards of Narsil.
Aragorn: Sauron will not have forgotten the sword of Elendil. The blade that was broken shall return to Minas Tirith.
Elrond: The man who can wield the power of this sword can summon to him an army more deadly than any that walks this earth. Put aside the ranger. Become who you were born to be. Take the Dimholt Road.
[pause]
Elrond: I give hope to men.
Aragorn: I keep none for myself.

(i love that...become who you were born to be. reminds me of lion king. "remember who you areeeee...")

Aragorn: Hold your ground, hold your ground. Sons of Gondor, of Rohan, my brothers. I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. An hour of woes and shattered shields, when the age of men comes crashing down, but it is not this day. This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you *stand, Men of the West!*

and...

Theoden: Eomer. Take your Èored down the left flank. Gamling, follow the King's banner down the center. Grimbold, take your company right, after you pass the wall. Forth, and fear no darkness! Arise. Arise, Riders of ThÈoden. Spears shall be shaken, shields shall be splintered. A sword day... a red day... ere the sun rises.
Eowyn: [to Merry] What ever happens, stay with me. I'll look after you.
[the King rides past his men, hitting their spears with his sword as he goes]
Theoden: Ride now... Ride now... Ride. Ride for ruin and the world's ending.
[He stops and prepares to face Sauron's army]
Theoden: Death!
Rohirrim: [echoing] Death!
Theoden: Death!
Rohirrim: [echoing] Death!
Theoden: DEATH!
Eowyn, Merry: DEATH!!
Theoden: Forth, Eorlingas!

("DEAAAAATTTHHH!!!!" waiting for your pep talk, bobby. i'll bring my horn.
and sorry, eowyn, can't have someone who's taken. duh.)

Gandalf: Farewell, my brave Hobbits. My work is not finished. Here at last, on the shores of the sea, comes the end of our Fellowship. I will not say, do not weep, for not all tears are an evil.

(haha, take that, ike. i'm gonna go cry now.)

"One Ring to Rule Them All.
One Ring to Find Them.
One Ring to Bring Them All
and In The Darkness Bind Them."

(steve, you HAVE to take a picture like this. it is SO doable.)

it was a good day, friends. until next time....

keep it secret...keep it safe.

"shame and grace" excerpt - l. smedes

But important as clothes are to what we look like, they are more deeply the metaphors of what we are. They are signs of our mystery, and mystery is the sign of a real self:

If we have no privacy, we have no mystery, and if we have no mystery we have no self.

If we have no privacy, we have no depth: we are on the surface, transparent, superficial, shallow, boring.

If we have no privacy, we have no sacredness: we lose our boundaries, and we have no place within that is holy to ourselves. Take away our scaredness, and we lose our core.

If we have no privacy, we lose our identity: it is swallowed in the mass. We do not know who we are even if we are celebrities and everybody on earth knows our name.

14 things you didn't know about mosquitoes

Sameh Fahmy
The (Nashville) Tennessean
Jul. 10, 2003 12:00 AM

It starts with that whining sound. You look around, searching for the source, knowing you're in trouble. Before you can escape - ouch!

Mosquitoes are far more than an annoyance. They can transmit malaria, yellow fever, dengue fever, and in case you haven't heard, the potentially deadly West Nile virus.

But you already knew that. Here are 14 things you didn't know about the little bloodsuckers:

1. "Mosquito" is a Spanish and Portuguese word meaning "little fly." The English, who call Band-Aids "plasters" and cookies "biscuits," used to call them "gnats."

2. There are more than 2,500 different species of mosquitoes worldwide; about 200 in the United States. A new species, called Anopheles grabhamii, was discovered in the Florida Keys in 2001.

3. Male mosquitoes are attracted to females by the distinct sound of their wing beat. The attraction is so irresistible that a power plant in Canada kept malfunctioning until engineers realized that thousands of dead male mosquitoes were gumming it up. Apparently the plant sounded like their next fling.

4. A female mosquito (the only ones that bite) may probe your skin up to 20 times before finding the right blood vessel. She injects a substance that keeps your blood from coagulating to make sipping it easier.

5. A mosquito has a nerve in its stomach that lets it know when it's full. If you cut that nerve, it keeps sucking blood until it explodes.

6. Mosquitoes almost moved Memphis, Tenn.: An 1878 yellow fever outbreak killed more than 5,000 of the city's 33,000 residents. After the outbreak, some town leaders wanted to level the city, salt the earth and re-establish the town elsewhere.

7. The mosquito-borne West Nile virus was first identified in 1937 in Uganda near the western bank of the Nile Valley. It was first seen outside that region in Israel in the 1950s and later in Europe and parts of Western Asia. In 1999, it was first discovered in the United States in New York City.

8. So how did the virus cross the Atlantic? Nobody knows for sure, but there are a few theories.

Theory A: Infected mosquitoes stowaway on a flight to the United States.

Theory B: A bird carrying high levels of the virus is illegally imported or is blown across the Atlantic by the jet stream or freak storms and later bitten by a mosquito.

Another theory: West Nile virus is a bioterrorism agent introduced by Saddam Hussein's goons. (This was proposed by a columnist for the right-leaning newsmax.com).

Forty-one states have official state insects or butterflies, but no state has chosen mosquitoes as its bug of choice. This is most likely because mosquitoes bite and sometimes kill people.

Mosquitoes aren't all bad: They're food for other insects, fish, frogs, bats and birds. They also help pollinate plants.

11. For the most part, mosquitoes feed on nectar or rotting fruit. The females drink blood only when they're ready to lay eggs.

12. A mosquito can find you from 65 to 115 feet away. She first smells the carbon dioxide and lactic acid you exhale, and as she gets closer she sees you moving. The heat your body generates guides her to the unprotected part of your body.

13. A mosquito will drink two to three times her weight in blood. She's so heavy after a blood meal that she can barely fly.

14. Good luck trying to find a place where mosquitoes don't live. They can be found at 8,000 feet up in the Himalayas, below sea level in the California desert, above the Arctic circle and in the Sahara desert.

i came across that article when i was trying to google good things about mosquitoes after i discovered two mosquito bites on my shoulder. there must be a reason for their existence. mostly, they're good for pollination and sucking the sticky sap off of trees and plants but scientists don't think that there would be a significant impact on the ecosystem if they all disappeared. so then why? whyyyy must we live with mosquitoes. arg.

corinne bailey rae

i really like her. smooth feel-good mellow music. kind of has a norah jones, eryka badu, macy gray-ish sound.

very true

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