Author Archive for Thursday's Child

It’s those little things…

Published
by
Thursday's Child
on Tuesday, 30th December, 2008
in General, Life, Movies, Quickie and personal philosophy
. 0 Comments

…those itty bitty things. It’s those little things that piss me off.

I don’t typically get very angry about things. Whenever I do, it rarely lasts very long. I can’t say that I’m really “over it” per se, but I have gotten past the initial knee-jerk reaction of the thing. Here, let me ruin a movie for you.

Seven Pounds is about a man who is out to help several people turn their disease-ridden lives around. His plan is to find people to whom he is a donor match, then he’s going to kill himself so those people can have his parts. What a hero! A man’s going to commit suicide, which is bad, terrible, no good. But wait! There’s more! He’s going to donate his parts to other people, so that’s okay. That’s right. Because none of us could find them before, Seven Pounds points out to us all the redemptive qualities of suicide.

Now, I realize that murder, violence, etc have been glorified in movies for years, but there just seems something different about treating suicide the same way. I mean, when do we get to see the redemptive qualities of child molestation or rape or elder abuse? I mean, those are all taboo, so they’re bound to be packed with oh so subtle redemptive qualities, right? Right?

Maybe suicide just hits me a little too close to home. I’ve been close. Too close. And whenever I see it being portrayed as something to strive for, something heroic, I guess I just get a little up in arms. I just fail to see how that message could be portrayed as heroic. Again: I understand my hypocrisy in my having no problems with the murder and violence being glorified, but there just seems to be something so different with suicide.

Thoughts?

Thanksgiving

Published
by
Thursday's Child
on Monday, 1st December, 2008
in Dog, General, Home Life, Life, Love, Photography and humor
. 2 Comments

The last four days have gone by too quickly, filled with errands, food, more food, more errands, and best of all, some quality time with my fiancee.

I’ve never been terribly big on holiday decorating, but I’ve got to admit, I had a lot of fun putting up a tree, decorating it, and all that. Of course, it couldn’t really be as simple as all that. First of all, it isn’t a real tree. My mom was kind enough to give us an old fake tree she had, which was great, because that meant we didn’t have to buy anything. She even supplied most of the ornaments and lights and whatnot to go on it.

We put the tree together, and I strung the lights. We started to hang some ornaments, and that’s when everything just went horribly wrong. The tree is old, and its stand is plastic. One of the feet of the stand broke, and the tree began to topple, no axe required. I caught it, but not before a couple ornaments fell off, with their typical POP and resulting tinkle of thin glass exploding on the hardwood floor. We got a new stand, and reset the tree, with minimal damage done to the lights and the tree.

Well, there was some confusion in setting the bolts, and the tree began to promptly fall over. Fortunately, we had taken all the ornaments off before transplanting our poor tree, so nothing broke this time, especially because neither of us caught it before it hit the ground. Frustrated, we left it lying there on its side, vowing to try again later.

We tried again, and got the thing set, and began the process anew of arranging the ornaments. We finally finished, and were rather happy with the outcome. We put on the tree skirt, and stood back and enjoyed the moment. This was ours. Our tree. In our home. For our first Christmas together. Gushy and mushy as it may sound, the feeling was profound, and I’ve never felt more at ease or felt things were so right, even if the tree did fall over a couple times in the process. According to the countdown over there in the side bar, we’re about 18 days away from marriage, and although I may be a little nervous, I’m excited at the prospect.

Our tree. In Our house. For our first Christmas Together.

With our puppy, Thalia.

We even have a wreath.

Wordpress Plugins

Published
by
Thursday's Child
on Tuesday, 25th November, 2008
in Blogging, Geekiness, General, Life and Quickie
. 3 Comments

So, I’ve long been a proponent of free software and the like, but I’ve never been much able to contribute back, as far as software goes. Until now!

Last week, I made a wordpress plugin that turns any twitter style name into a link, automatically! For example: @rachelskirts @jacefuse @thursdayschild

See? Automatically linked. If you’re interested in said plugin, you can check it out over on its page at Wordpress. Twitterlinker is the name.

Enjoy! Comments are surely welcome. If you use it, drop me a line as well!

Book Buyers

Published
by
Thursday's Child
on Monday, 24th November, 2008
in Geekiness, General, Humanity, Life, Literature and personal philosophy
. 2 Comments

I was catching up on Twitter this evening, and I ran across a particular tweet from @grammargirl. (You can find her over at Quick and Dirty Tips) She said this:

Wow. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has temporarily stopped acquiring manuscripts. Their editors aren’t buying books.

She linked to this article over at Publisher’s Weekly. If you don’t want to read the article (Come on. It’s short.), the key line is “PW has learned that Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has asked its editors to stop buying books.”

I’m a big fan of books. I read a lot of them. I buy a lot more of them. Some day, I would like to write one or two. I’ve been watching the publication industry for a while, because I would like to get into it in some capacity, and I have never heard of a publisher putting an entire hold on buying books. Spokespeople at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt are saying that the move isn’t indicative of anything too sinister, but how can it not? While I’m sure the publisher has a vast store of manuscripts it has purchased not (yet) published, but if a publisher stops buying books, it creates a stagnation in thought.

Think about it: no new books are coming in, so new books will stop going out, and while there are tons of books out there, and no one could ever read them all, publication of new and ever-improving ideas is a must for the development of culture, philosophy, or really any other facet of life. This move by Houghton Mifflin really has me concerned, even if it is being called a “temporary” situation. This is a dangerous precedent for them to have set.

Small Canines

Published
by
Thursday's Child
on Thursday, 20th November, 2008
in Dog, General, Home Life, Life, Love, Photography, Relationships and humor
. 6 Comments

As I mentioned in my last post, Kreestone and I got a puppy last weekend. She got around to posting some pictures to Facebook, and since we’re not all friends there, I’ve rehosted them and thought I’d let you see our puppy. I’ll tell you a little about her, too, but after the pictures.


We think she’s pretty awesome. She’s a 4-month-old Pembroke Welsh Corgi, and she’s got tons of energy. Well, sometimes. She can run around in circles, chasing who knows what, but sometimes, she’d rather just sit. Particularly when she’s on a leash. In fact, the first time we put her on the leash, the only reason she moved was because the electric door of Petsmart closed behind her and scared her. She’s a special one alright.

We’ve named her Thalia (Tall-ee-uh) after the Greek goddess of festivity, and muse of comedy. She certainly fits the bill with her rather strange demeanor. She’ll run around exploring, but when she gets tired of that, she’ll come into the room, look at you, and promptly flop on her side, as if some invisible hand suddenly pushed her over. Sometimes, though, she forgets to stop running before she does this, and proceeds to slide for a few inches before coming to a stop. We’re hoping she’ll figure out how to lie down.

One of the best things about Thalia, though, is how she acts when she gets tired. We already knew she had some trouble lying down, but she has picked one spot in our office that she likes, even more than the little doggy bed we’ve provided for her. It’s, well, just have a look:

That’s our dog, alright.

Achoo!

Published
by
Thursday's Child
on Wednesday, 19th November, 2008
in Blogging, General, Life, Love, Relationships and School
. 8 Comments

So, I logged in, and began dusting off the surface around this place, and decided to let everyone know just what’s been going on that I’ve been neglecting this place for so long.

First of all, I’ve been spending lots of time with my girlfrie…err fiancee. That’s right, I got engaged back in mid-October. The real surprise is that we’re getting married soon. Like, in December! While we’re not doing the big traditional wedding thing (much to the chagrin of her family), we are going to be having a spiffy reception. If you want to come, or if you just want to buy us some pretty stuff, I’ve setup a small site with the basic info on it, so give it a visit and make sure to check out the registry page.

So, in keeping with the getting married theme, we had to find a house, and quickly, since her lease on her own place was up on the first of this month. Given that we got engaged only a couple weeks before that, we had to hurry. We both spent a lot of time making phone calls, talking with possible landlords, and the like. Ultimately, we found a place, and it’s perfect. It’s a small 1930s 2 bedroom, 1 bath, and it’s really pretty much just perfect for the two of us.

Then, of course, after we found a house in record time, I had to move her in. Her work schedule didn’t afford much time for her to do it, so I grabbed a buddy, and the two of us spent a Saturday moving what she’d packed over to the new place. The rest of that weekend was spent getting things settled in the house.

As it turned out, the fiance doesn’t so much like to stay at the house alone, so we got ourselves a welsh corgi, who we’ve named Thalia (Tall-ee-uh). She’s a little special, but she’s awesome. Pictures to come at some point in the future.

So, I’ve been busy just about every weekend for the last month and a half, but that still leaves the weekdays, you say. Well, it would, but since I’ve been gone every weekend, I’m having to spend more time during the week on homework. I’ve got to make sure I do well, because I’m graduating in December now, not in May. So, you know, if you want, you can get me a nice graduation present, too.

In any event, apart from homework, things have settled down a bit, and I think it’s time to just hit “Mark all as read” and jump back into blogs now, rather than catching up on the couple thousand posts that have amassed there. Sorry, but I’ll try to go through archives and catch what I missed later on, though.