drawing bright lines in the sand

Thursday, December 15, 2005

The New Addiction

I have a link here.

I must warn you.

Clicking may mean the loss of your soul because the subject of the link is both addicting and aggravating.

With that said...

Click annoy yourself into a coma.

The game is Sudoku. The point of the game is to get the numbers 1-9 in each of the nine 3x3 cubes, across each row, and down each column.

It starts out sounding harmless enough. But you will be frustrated, I promise. And then you will be enraptured. And then frustrated. And enraptured.

The definition of addiction is an artificial need and consequent hatred for something. Well, I'm addicted.

Be addicted too.

-brian

Sunday, December 11, 2005

photos of the year.

http://www.time.com/time/yip/2005/?promoid=rss_top

TIME recently posted their picks for the 24 "best photos of the year" on their website. Almost all of them have to do with death or disaster, especially when the captions are read to give context. There were three that stood out as hopeful to me. But I feel deep distress. Could TIME find so little beauty to remember in 2005?

I can think of some.

-brian

Saturday, December 10, 2005

"I've Just Been to the Most Wonderful of Places!"

I saw The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe on Wednesday night at a pre-release at the Downtown Disney theatre.

Before I say anything more, I must confess that Lewis' Narnia cycle is one of my very favorite sequences in literature. The first time I read through it (as a sophomore in college) I actually wept at a few places in the story. In his fantastic world, Lewis captured some of the most true human moments. Perhaps that is why I love fantasy so much... it frees the author to talk about things we see every day, in a way which is new and refreshing.

In short, I went into the Narnia premiere on the defensive, prepared for the worst. I wondered if Disney would ruin one of my most treasured stories by totally obliterating the Christian theology which composes Narnia.

But they didn't. They left Narnia pretty much alone, and made an incredibly beautiful movie out of the source material.

I loved the LOTR trilogy, both book and movie. But there were points in the movies where the pacing waned and I got bored. This is not at all the case with Narnia. There really is no downpoint in the story. It's a 2.5 hour movie, but the pacing is very quick.

So the characters are shallow, right? Actually, no. Even though the story moves along very quickly, the characters obviously grow and have genuine depth. The child actors actually did an incredible job---especially Lucy. If I had a daughter as cute as Lucy, I think I would spoil her and make her a daddy's girl. Hm.

The scenery was incredible, the costumes appropriate, the animals well-animated, the music (for the most part) above-par, and the story (of course) engaging.

Go see it, if you haven't.

Wednesday, December 07, 2005

New Header

<<<
"Now with SPACE TECHNOLOGY!">>

Why, you ask? Because my blog now has SPACE TECHNOLOGY.>>

Marvel at my ability to post with technology that was developed and tested.... IN SPACE!!!>>

Ergo, vis a vis, concordantly....>>


SPACE TECHNOLOGY!>>>>

>>>>>>>>>>>>>-brian>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>