| JUST A HORSE!
Author unknown
From time to time, people tell me, "lighten up, it's just a horse," or, "that's a lot of money for "just a horse".
They don't understand the distance traveled, the time spent, or the costs involved for "just a horse."
Some of my proudest moments have come about with "just a horse."
Many hours have passed and my only company was "just a horse," but I did not once feel slighted.
Some of my saddest moments have been brought about by "just a horse,' and in those days of darkness, the gentle touch of "just a horse" gave me comfort and reason to overcome the day.
If you, too, think it's "just a horse," then you will probably understand phrases like "just a friend," "just a sunrise," or "just a promise."
"Just a horse" brings into my life the very essence of friendship, trust, and pure unbridled joy.
"Just a horse" brings out the compassion and patience that make me a better person.
Because of "just a horse" I will rise early, take long walks and look longingly to the future.
So for me and folks like me, it's not "just a horse" but an embodiment of all the hopes and dreams of the future, the fond memories of the past, and the pure joy of the moment.
"Just a horse" brings out what's good in me and diverts my thoughts away.
I hope that someday they can understand that it's not "just a horse" but the thing that gives me humanity and keeps me from being "just a woman/man."
So the next time you hear the phrase "just a horse" just smile, because they "just" don't understand. | comments: Leave a comment  |
| Your result for The RPG Class Test... Spellsword59% Combativeness, 47% Sneakiness, 68% Intellect, 39% Spirituality 
Aggressive, but with the brains to back it up: You are a Spellsword!
Score! You have a prestige class. A prestige class can only be taken after you've fulfilled certain requirements. This may mean that you're an exceptionally talented person, but it probably doesn't.
Spellswords combine arcane might with combat know-how. They're much tougher than mages, like to wear armor, and can cast spells through their weapons. They're very, very, good at doing lots of damage to a single target very quickly, and while not quite as tough as most fighters, are still pretty hard to kill.
You're both smart and aggressive, which means that you're probably pretty dangerous when pissed off. You also tend to be somewhat straightforward, which is nice, and don't have much use for spirituality or mysticism. Take The RPG Class Test at HelloQuizzy | comments: Leave a comment  |
| It's been a very busy week.
Monday night actually played an RPG for the first time in years. D&D 4th edition rules have just come out and a friend was wanting to try them. Despite the rules stating that it should take about 20 minutes to put together a character, it took 4 experienced gamers nearly 2 hours to put together a party. The general attitude at the end of the evening was WTF?? re: the rules, but we all agreed we'd had a good time.
Tuesday...sleep
Wednesday abovenyquist and I went to see Peter Murphy in concert. It was a small show at Center Stage Theatre, about 400 people. Excellent concert, only disappointment was that he did not perform "Cuts You Up".
Thursday B and I went to see Wanted with friends. It's a good action movie that doesn't take itself too seriously and has some nice eye candy. I have to agree with the reviewer who stated that "like the Matrix, this movie isn't as complicated as it thinks it is."
Today was Dim Sum for lunch with friends and local fireworks with B. | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment  |
| Supposedly the "average American" has only read 6 of these. Bold are the ones I've read, underlined are the ones I've read and loved, italics are the ones I plan on reading. Comments are mine.
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen I initially didn't like this but it grew on me over time. 2 The Lord of the Rings - I've tried. I just can't get past the wordiness. 3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte 4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling 5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee 6 The Bible 7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte 8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell I liked it on initial read in elementary school, but later re-reads fell seriously short. 9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman 10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens 11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott 12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy I don't remember liking this one. 13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller 14 Complete Works of Shakespeare 15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier Read it for class. 16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien 17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks 18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger Good, but his short stories are far better. 19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger 20 Middlemarch - George Eliot 21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell 22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald Read it for class, don't recall being impressed. 23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens Wish I had those hours back... 24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy 25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams 26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh 27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky 28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck 29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll 30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame 31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy 32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens 33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis Ok, yeah, it's blatant promotion of Christian ideals as well as Lewis' projected ideas as to what children should be like. However, it really resonated with me as a kid. 34 Emma - Jane Austen 35 Persuasion - Jane Austen 36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis 37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini 38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres 39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden 40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne 41 Animal Farm - George Orwell 42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown 43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez 44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving 45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins 46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery 47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy 48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood The book is SO much stronger than the movie could even think about being. 49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding 50 Atonement - Ian McEwan 51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel 52 Dune - Frank Herbert 53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons 54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen 55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth 56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon 57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens Proof that just because an author's works are read for over a century doesn't mean he was a good writer. 58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley 59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon 60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez 61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck 62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov 63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt 64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold 65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas 66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac 67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy 68 Bridget Jones' Diary - Helen Fielding 69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie 70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville 71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens 72 Dracula - Bram Stoker 73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett 74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson 75 Ulysses - James Joyce 76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath 77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome 78 Germinal - Emile Zola 79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray 80 Possession - AS Byatt 81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens 82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell 83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker 84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro 85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert 86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry 87 Charlotte's Web - EB White 88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom 89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton 91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad 92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery 93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks 94 Watership Down - Richard Adams 95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole 96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute 97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas 98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare 99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl 100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo | comments: Leave a comment  |
| I went to a sneak preview showing of Ironman last night.
I'm not a huge comic book (or graphic novel) fan. I can probably count on one hand the number of comic books that I've read in my lifetime. The people I attended with ranged from huge fans of the comic to those who had little frame of reference. I had no information at all about this film going into it, so I was pretty much viewing it from the perspective of a clean slate. Tabula rosa.
We all thoroughly enjoyed it. :)
While it had many of the weaknesses of most films based on comic series (dialog was not top-notch, secondary characters tended to be 2 dimensional), it was a well-crafted film. The acting and directing were strong, even those characters who were not fully fleshed out did not appear stiff. The internal conflict of the main character was evident without dissolving into overacted angst. The pacing of the script was excellent. This is one of the few movies I've been to in a while that neither dragged through bits or felt rushed. The special effects were beautiful, pretty much par for the course for ILM. The storyline was not terribly complicated but was presented nicely.
Overall, I'd have not felt bad if I'd paid full price to see it. It's not high art, but it's certainly worth $8 or $9 for a couple of hours of entertainment. | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment  |
| and most of these came from the crowd during breaks...
"Illinois, stays crunchy in milk."
"Espresso Stout! That's just what we need, awake drunks!"
"If the piano has a gun in the first scene, it has to fire it by the third scene."
"Look at this crowd. Not a tan in the bunch."
"It's a double-blind date."
"We're piloting the good ship ADD...right into "oh look a bunny!" Bay!" | comments: Leave a comment  |
| Completed... Thieves' World Vol. 3 Misconceptions in Dressage
Misplaced!... Sacred Rage Steppenwolf
Still working on... Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail
Started... Ready Ok (C, I lifted this off of your shelf, will return on completion) Theives' World Vol. 4 A Pen Warmed Up in Hell by Mark Twain | comments: Leave a comment  |
| "He said I was discriminating against him because he's Chinese. I wasn't discriminating against him because he's Chinese. I was discriminating against him because his hot water heater doesn't work!"
"No ma'am, your neighbor letting his dog poop in his own yard is not a health hazard."
"Well if we can't laugh about shit, what can we laugh about?"
"Which permit did I apply for again?" | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment  |
| http://www.eclecticenergies.com/enneagram/type1.php
I can see where I fit into this professionally. I'm known as a bit of a driven perfectionist at work, getting angry at myself for even the slightest mistake. Unfortunately, others' mistakes annoy me too, although I am not quick to express anger.
In my personal life, I think I'm much more of a 5. Interesting that it notes that 1's often mistake themselves for 5's. | comments: Leave a comment  |
| Damn, it's been a long time since I've updated this.
This is likely going to be boring for those of you reading. I'm writing it in the true sense of journaling, i.e. giving myself an evaluation of where I'm at and a record of where I've been for the future. It's probably the crudest form of mental masturbation, but hey, it's useful.
It looks like last year and hopefully this year will best be summed up as "renewal". Trying to find the remains of those dreams which faltered and fell under a load of practicality. Remembering those things which were distinctly "me"...that I was known for to my peers...which I used to define myself at some point long ago.
I used to write. Not as in "oh, I'm an artist...will you read my manuscript?", but as in published. As in went to a special high school for the creatively gifted in the writing department. As in got paid $$ (not copies) for a few short bits. As in had an editor at a publishing company (who unfortunately died before my genetics text for non-scientists saw print and her projects were all shelved by the company). I seriously looked at journalism as a career. I started out as a journalism major in college then switched to English Lit when I realized the college wasn't really interested in putting out writers and I lacked the voice, body or charisma for broadcasting. I stayed in English Lit for a couple of years, until it became apparent that my future job prospects were likely to include the words "would you prefer fries with that?" I also was disillusioned by the fact that my coursework was placing far more emphasis on analyzing other people's writing than it was on creating my own. Granted analyzing others' works is critical to learning to write well, but shouldn't I have had at least one assignment on my own work somewhere in the semester? So, my love of biology and the better job prospects won out. I started writing less and less. By the time I reached graduate school, I'd all but abandoned my fiction and poetry projects. My non-fiction work was still going, mostly in the form of really good lab reports and the genetics text that was to come years later. But somewhere around 8 or 9 years ago, even that got dropped to only work-related letters.
So...this journal will partially become a way to practice that again. Writing is like any other skill, if you don't do it, it escapes. You also may see the occasional short bit appear from time to time as well.
An old friend looked me up last April. We were inseparable in middle school, two social outcasts who shared science fiction, dysfunctional families and dreams of escaping. We hadn't talked in nearly 20 years. Of course, there was a lot of catching up to do. One thing from the conversation struck me hard. Charlotte was one I always looked at as the artist. I did some sketching, but only thought I was marginal at best. During our conversation, she asked me if I was still drawing. I told her I hadn't picked up an artists' pencil in 10 years or more. Her response was "damnit, why not?! You were so good at it." That conversation prompted the purchase of a sketch pad and a cheap set of basic pencils. I was surprised at how some of those skills came back to me. The mind may have been fuzzy on the details, but the eyes and fingers remembered the techniques. With a bit more practice, I'm thinking I can quickly be as good as I was...or maybe more.
Reading...used to read 2 - 3 books a week. I realized a couple of months ago that I hadn't read a single work in over a month. So..I present to you the current reading list... Thieves' World Vol. 3 (already re-read vols. 1 and 2) Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 by Hunter S. Thompson (appropriate for an election year) Sacred Rage by Robin Wright (history of Shi'ite terrorism...trying to get a better understanding of our current globe) Misconceptions and Simple Truths in Dressage by Dr. H.L.M. van Schaik (considered an essential book for dressage riders) Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse (damnit I'm going to FINISH it this time)
Two other topics for a later post... riding and weight lifting. | comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment  |
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