From Pit to Pandora

Still feeling down, but the wave is moving on. It helped that several people all weekend made a deliberate effort to keep me company. They didn't have to do this (and in some cases would probably have preferred doing other things) but it was appreciated.

I really wish I could strangle the part of me to death - it does nothing but make me feel miserable and alienate everyone around me. I hate it.

I saw Avatar yesterday. If you have the opportunity, go see it in 3D - it will blow you away. It's also a rollicking good adventure movie - a modern take on the "John Carter of Mars" genre.

It's not as good as Titanic, but it's still damn good. People may take that comment as evidence to go see Avatar regardless of the thoughts on Titanic.

In other news, I'm looking forward to it being four weeks in the future.

Who Wants a Shiny New Liver?

I have no idea what to get my friends for Christmas. So they're getting booze or restaurant gift certificates.

Lewis Carroll Meets God Almighty

I found this on Making Light and thought it needed wider distribution:
"You are old, Father Yahweh," the fabulist said,
"And your wrath has grown harder to sell.
So I've written a sequel with you as the head
Where your son comes to earth for a spell."

"In my youth," Father Yahweh replied to young Luke,
"I was One and I shall always be.
But your tale has poor Mary knocked up by my spook!
By that count, you've split me in three."

"You are old," Luke continued, "Your foibles re food
Make you pointlessly picky on chow.
So act 10 will have Peter in visions conclude
That you're cool with non-kosher from now."

"In my youth," said the lord, "I had flavor and fire.
My restrictions were worn like a brand.
Now you let people eat anything they desire?
Makes my character spineless and bland."

"You are old, Father Yahweh," a tax man said,
"And your rules have left too many holes.
So I've called it a sin: the mere thought of a bed.
We'll make normal kids fear for their souls."

"In my youth," said the god, "I made sex. It was grand!
Men had slave girls and multiple wives.
Now you've made me the watcher of every lad's hand --
The repressor of natural drives."

"You are old, Father Yahweh," the tax man accused,
"And your justice took eye for an eye,
But we noticed that principle being abused
So we're giving forgiveness a try."

"Enough of your cheek!" Yahweh yelled from his throne,
"Your non-canon fanfic can't stand."
But a meme, once ignited, has life of its own
And the retcon continued as planned.
Props to Virge for writing this.

The Phantom Blemish

Found this wonderful deconstruction of everything wrong with The Phantom Menace via shunn. It's long but worth it.

Be warned though - the guy who wrote this decided on a weird framing device: The film reviewer is actually a serial killer. And it fails badly. On the Light Side, all the Star Wars stuff is brilliant and funny.

It's like a really good, rich ice cream with chunks of cauliflower in it. You love the treat but keep having to work around these irritating annoyances while consuming it and you wonder WTF they were thinking when they mixed the two together.

In the end, the analysis can be boiled down to "Nobody wanted to tell George Lucas 'NO'" (or Hell No).

Reimagining The Phantom Menace

shunn writes:

I was disappointed that Anakin as a child showed no sign of any of the dark character traits—cruelty, rage, craftiness, whatever—that would later turn him into Darth Vader. That, for me, meant I felt no tension in his interactions with the other characters, and it made his eventual seduction by the Dark Side seem kind of arbitrary.

This led me to thinking about what might-have-been. What kind of story would we have if Anakin Skywalker was a sociopath from the start.

( Fairly long plot synopsis of my re-imagining of episodes 1, 2 and 3, in point form because damn it's long enough as it is... )