Jimbo's Journal

Tonight is one of the LoA meetings. I have been waffling all night about whether (weather) to go or not. It's snowing like a sumbitch out there, but the place is only about a mile away. I decided that I would not use the weather as an excuse and go. So I got my coat on and went outside to get my car out of the garage and..... Holy crap! it's a lot worse than it even looked from out the window. I bet we have 2-3 inches already. Back inside. Not going. They haven't plowed the lot or anything, and I just don't feel like driving in this. Excuse? Maybe. Oh well.

-------------------------------------------
Oh, and I got half of my order in the mail from Amazon. A realty book for my cousin and ....

One of my failings is that I give up on things too quickly. If it doesn't yield immediate results, it must not be working, so I discard it. This is something that I have known about myself for quite some time, but I have recently been guilty of it in a particular instance and also had it confirmed by a very close friend. So I am making a concerted, conscious effort to give things more of a chance and try a bit harder.

So.... As I posted recently, I went to the local unitarian church. (Don't ask me all the specifics but, fyi, they aren't Congregational Unitarian, but Universal Unitarian. Whatever.) I went the once and then either forgot or prioritized it behind football or other things until I was able to go again a couple weeks ago. I then went to a group meeting which was mentioned in the bulletin, called Law of Attraction. Yeah, I know what you're thinking, so did I at first, but that isn't what it is about. It's based on a book of the same name about attracting positive things into your life, basically like "The Power of Positive Thinking" kinda thing from what I gather. That first week we watched a film called The Shift based on works of Wayne Dyer. I'd never heard of him before. It was decent to good. Some interesting things, and others that I either didn't agree with or didn't get.

Tonight's was different. We listened to the beginning of an audio book. To summarize (possibly unfairly) this woman went to see someone who channeled a "spirit guide" and then through meditation channeled her own. I am apparently WAY too skeptical, because the whole time I was internally rolling my eyes and scoffing the entire time while she talked about non-physical intellingences, etc. I sat there wondering what the hell I had gotten myself into, what was I doing there, and that I should just get up and leave.

Maybe I'm not only skeptical but also cynical. I don't know. I like to think that I'm not opposed to the concept or possibility of God, but things like this make me rethink that. Maybe I truly don't believe. As I said before, after watching the PBS special on National Parks, I felt somewhat inspired and, I thought, spiritually enlightened. Maybe it wasn't spiritual but merely visceral (is that the right word?) or natural. Nature really is beautiful, and maybe that's all it is; not some product of something more than that.

I'm open to the idea of meditation. I even kinda liked it when I was doing a bit of yoga. But I see it as a means of relaxation and maybe examining INWARD, into yourself, your subconscious, that sort of thing. Not as a means of channeling external intelligence. Hell, I'm even open to such things as ghosts, but as forms of lingering energy or even subconscious memory, but again not really as intelligent beings.

After listening to this audio book segment, I tried to express these thoughts and feelings, expecting that they wouldn't much like what I had to say. Instead I was met with nods and told that this is perfectly fine. On the one hand I kinda feel like they were saying, that's fine, you'll come around. But on the other hand, they may be perfectly fine with my skepticism and cynicism. These people (of the Unitarian church) seem to be much more open to diverse opinions and beliefs than I am accustomed to. It's a bit disconcerting. but in a good way, I guess.

So I think I am going to try to push on and give it more of a chance. The people are all really nice. There's only four others, all women, older than me. Maybe this isn't the right group for me. We'll see. I intend to check out the "Current Events" discussion, but that takes place on Sunday at 9am before the service and I haven't been able to get to that one yet. We'll see. Still a work in progress. So it goes.

From Fellowship of the Ring:

“What a pity that Bilbo did not stab that vile creature, when he had a chance!”

“Pity? It was Pity that stayed his hand. Pity, and Mercy: not to strike without need. And he has been well rewarded, Frodo. Be sure that he took so little hurt from the evil, and escaped in the end, because he began his ownership of the Ring so. With Pity.”

“I am sorry,” said Frodo. “But I am frightened; and I do not feel any pity for Gollum.”

“You have not seen him,” Gandalf broke in.

“No, and I don’t want to,” said Frodo. “I can’t understand you. Do you mean to say that you, and the Elves, have let him live on after all those horrible deeds? Now at any rate he is as bad as an Orc, and just an enemy. He deserves death.”

“Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. For even the very wise cannot see all ends. I have not much hope that Gollum can be cured before he dies, but there is a chance of it. And he is bound up with the fate of the Ring. My heart tells me that he has some part to play yet, for good or ill, before the end; and when that comes, the pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many—yours not least.”

From A Game of Thrones:

Signed for the pilot for HBO's A Game of Thrones.    Man! I hope this is made well and the series gets picked up.

	Mark Addy	...	Robert Baratheon
	Sean Bean	...	Eddard Stark
	Peter Dinklage	...	Tyrion Lannister

YES!!!!  Finally.  From Martin's own LJ:

http://heyjennyslater.blogspot.com/2009/03/atlas-sucked.htmlOMG!  Do I need to read this book or am I just being a glutton for punishment?

I added George R.R. Martin's page to my LJ flist.  He's got some pretty cool posts about miniatures from ASOIAF.

But in the course of my reading I saw reference to them casting Peter Dinklage as Tyrion Lannister for the HBO series.  I don't know if it's official, as the IMDb page doesn't list a cast yet.  If true, I like that casting a lot.  It looks like the series is slated for 2009, so I'd assume that casting and shooting should be in progress or starting soon.

From George R.R. Martin's Not A Blog

And as much as I really want the rest of these books to come out, I feel much sympathy for GRRM when he gets attacked by people who feel that he owes them.




Just looking over his site and LJ, makes me want to reread the books.  I really do think it is my favorite (so far) fantasy series ever, above Lord of the Rings and The Belgariad, though I confess that I haven't read all that many.  

The BBC allegedly believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here:

How do your reading habits stack up? [bold those books you've read in their entirety, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish].

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible (not all at once) - I think I have read it all
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
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
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
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
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
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 Carrol
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis (well, that's sort of silly, as it's part of #33)
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
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
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’s 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 Colour 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 - NO, but I own it
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

16 TOTAL - I guess that puts me well over the "average."  Does the BBC make this contention for UK readers only, I wonder?

Three freaking Thomas Hardy novels, and I read the OTHER one - The Mayor of Casterbridge.

What Kind of Reader Are You? Your Result: Literate Good Citizen   You read to inform or entertain yourself, but you're not nerdy about it. You've read most major classics (in school) and you have a favorite genre or two.
Dedicated Reader
Obsessive-Compulsive Bookworm
Book Snob
Fad Reader
Non-Reader
What Kind of Reader Are You? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

That's not exactly accurate.  Most of the classics that I have read (not nearly enough, though I've disliked many of them), I read after I left school.

I should rate higher on the Dedicated Reader scale, since I read every day and always have a book with me.

I lost power for about half an hour.  While I wasn't looking forward to the drop in temperature (electric baseboard heating) it was actually kinda peaceful.  I lit a couple candles, had my laptop playing music and read a bit of The Invisible Man.  I don't spend enough time in quietude (no tv, especially).

Kitty was a bit perplexed at first, but she soon went about her business as usual.

OMG, I've never even heard of this before:

(but before you watch it, just remember that you cannot unwatch it)


Color version, but poorer quality sound here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AG21O3sQ6OU

(Title, Author, Date Begun, pages)

1. Seven Novels by H.G. Wells
   a. The Time Machine by H.G. Wells 1/1/09 p. 64
   b. The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells 1/4/09 p. 96
   c. The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells 1/14/09 p. 110
   d. The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells 1/29/09 p. 136
5. The Truth with Jokes by Al Franken  DNF
6. What Would Jefferson Do? by Thom Hartmann DNF
7. Assorted stories by H.P. Lovecraft p. 173
8. A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin p. 674
9. Towing Jehovah by James Morrow 6/1/09 p. 371
10. A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin 7/12/09 p. 768
11. Secret Histories by F. Paul Wilson 7/16/09 p. 302
12. A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin p. 1216
13. A Feast for Crows by George R.R. Martin p. 784
14. Darwin's Blade by Dan Simmons 10/07/09 p. 434
15. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman 10/21/09 p. 370
16. Ground Zero by F. Paul Wilson 10/26/09 p. 366
17. Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons 11/19/09 p. 891?

2008 Reading Log

drmagoo  just sent me an email.  I don't know why he didn't post here, so I will.

GRRM's A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice & Fire pt 1) is coming to HBO .... at least the pilot for the potential series.

http://grrm.livejournal.com/58155.html

Fuckin' A!!!!!!

Now finish writing the damn books, George!

I couldn't sleep last night.  My mind wouldn't stop running.  My back has also been bothering me, and I just went to the chiro 2 weeks ago.  Last time I remember looking at the clock it said 1:36.  It started storming this morning and I woke up.  My alarm also went off (twice that I remember).  I don't know which happend first.  Finally I rolled over expecting my alarm to go off any minute again, until I realize it said 6:42 and not 5:42.  18 minutes to get up, shower, get dressed, and drive 25 minutes to work.  Was late; don't care.  Tired. 

Didn't do much of anything (AGAIN) this weekend.  I did some reading*, some tv, not much cleaning.  I did stop by and see my dad (mom wasn't there).  We briefly discussed financial issues.  I breached the subject, barely, about the need to find a way to more consistently have a steadi(er) income.  Don't think it sank in, but might provide an inroad for future.

Blah.  Now I'm hear at work.  Blah.  They signed the deal for new computer software last week.  They're supposed to call us when the software comes in to begin scheduling the training/transition.  Excitement and trepidation ensues.

*I bought John Dean's Conservatives Without Conscience at the dollar store last week.  I've been interested in reading it for a while, so when I saw it for $1 I couldn't pass it up.  Fascinating look into the mindset of conservatives and the modern version- the neoconservative.  I'm actually buying a couple more copies to give to people, so if anyone else wants a copy let me know.

The Conflict Between Word and Image
by Leonard Shlain


This is a really fascinating book. Unfortunately, it is taking me forever to read it, as most non-fiction does - Three days and I'm only on page 35.

Fortunately, unlike most attempts at non-fiction, I haven't lost interest.

"Literacy has promoted the subjugation of women by men throughout all but the very recent history of the West," writes Leonard Shlain. "Misogyny and patriarchy rise and fall with the fortunes of the alphabetic written word."

[Shlain] argues that when cultures acquire literacy, the brain's left hemisphere dominates the right with enormous consequences ... [that it] "subliminally fosters a patriarchal outlook" at the expense of feminine values.

So far it has dealt with how different actions and thoughts are controlled by different parts of the brain and how the development of communication came about and how it affected/changed the development of the brain. And then how those changes led to the development of society and the roles of the genders and how they changed.

Begun 11/2007

(Title, Author, Date Begun, pages)

1) 1984 by George Orwell p.336 
2) 40 Days and 40 Nights by Matthew Chapman p.288
3) The World Without Us by Alan Weisman p. 20 DNF
4) Bloodline (RJ-11) by F Paul Wilson p.384
5) The Road by Cormac McCarthy p.256
6) Boy's Life by Robert McCammon 12/13/07 p.438
7) "The Picture in the House" by H.P. Lovecraft 1/2/8 p.7
8) Brother Odd by Dean Koontz 1/3/08 p.364
9) Are We Rome by  1/17/08 p. 75 DNF
10) James Madison a Biography by Jack Ketcham 1/29/08 p. 95 DNF
11) The Golden Compass (aka Northern Lights) by Philip Pullman 2/6/08 p. 399
12) The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman 2/26/08 p. 326
13) The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman 3/18/08 p. 518
14) Brimstone by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child 4/15/08 p. 512
15) Dance of Death by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child 4/26/08 p. 464
16) The Book of the Dead by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child 5/9/08 p. 450
17) Identity Crisis by Brad Meltzer 6/16/08 p. 288
18) The Alphabet and the Goddess by Leonard Shlain, p.55 DNF
19) The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick p. 251?
       -missed some?-
20) The Damnation Game by Clive Barker p. ___
21) Conservatives Without Conscience by John W. Dean p. ___
22) The Traveling Vampire Show by Richard Laymon p. 391
23) The Ferryman by Christopher Golden p. 321
24) The Scream by John Skipp and Craig Spector 9/8/08 p. 420
25) The Light at the End by John Skipp and Craig Spector p. 384
26) Odd Hours by Dean Koontz 10/14/08 p. 352
27) Creepers by David Morrell p. ___
28) By The Sword by F. Paul Wilson 11/07/08 p. 347
29) Summer of Night by Dan Simmons 11/16/08 p. 555
30) A Winter Haunting by Dan Simmons 12/6/08 p. 303
31) Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk 12/18/08 p. 208

Hopefully I can keep this up, and I plan on bumping it up to the top every month or so.  
Thanks to 

trillian421979  and a_kosmos for the idea.  
I also have a list at www.goodreads.com but probably won't keep that going. 

In the replay of last week's LOST with the added info text (from the writers), they make a connection, albeit a tenuous one, between LOST and Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials: Desmond's military Camp Millard is near Svalbard, a place in the novels where there exists a doorway between worlds.  Is this a hint of the larger plot mystery?  Desmond has quickly become one of my favorite characters on the show; the scene when he finally reached Penny on Christmas even ("I won't call you for eight years: on Christmas Eve 2004.  I promise.") was just so emotional.

My parents both have jobs now.  My dad is running errands for his friend who owns the car lot that he used to work at (off the books, I presume).  He may gradually do more, including possibly selling cars again.  I'm not 100% thrilled by this since he used to work 12 hour days and get pretty stessed sometimes.  My mom got a teller job at a bank for $9/hr.  It's fulltime, though, and she will get benefits including insurance, once she hit 90 days.

I'm not even sure that's the correct terminology.

I got an email regarding a job opening, which I don't know if it's valid:

( Email text including link ) Email Text:

Your online resume has recently come to my attention. I am impressed with your qualifications. A client of mine needs to fill an opening and because of your previous experience in the customer service industry, I believe you might be a solid match. Please read over this information regarding the Bookseller position. The Barnes and Nobles Bookseller assists customers with book purchases and any questions they might have.

Barnes and Nobles

Bookseller

Above Average Salary with growth incentives

We are looking for someone who has great communication skills and the ability to perform administrative tasks. If you would like more information about this position or would like to submit an application, please click on the link. You may also paste the link into your browser to access a more detailed description and application. The job description will give you a better idea of what types of perks are available.

http://the-job-group.org/cmanager2.aspx?em=jimbow8@yahoo.com&id=rsdxcfdf7_u7845tmreviealCnerbig011520082ser18&rd=745&j=5112408

So far that's reasonable, but when I click on the link it's a bunch of text boxes to fill out. Also reasonable, EXCEPT two of the required fields are Cell Phone Number and Cell Phone Provider. I can see them asking for a cell phone number (but requiring it??) as it may be required for the job???? But why the hell would they require to know my provider?

This just set off some warning bells. Anyone know if this is some kind of scheme or if it's legit? Any opinions?

Speaking of memes, I started reading The Golden Compass (aka Northern Lights) and am about halfway through it. I remember the dæmon meme from a long time ago, so tried to find it. It told me that my dæmon is a fox named Aurora and reveals that I am modest, solitary, humble, fickle, and asserive. I'm not sure about the assertive part, but .......

Another one that I had found first (not movie/book related):  
More descriptive and probably more accurate, though I don't recall the last time I showed a "child-like pleasure in small things," unfortunately.