Discovery

Certified Ghost Free

2018-12-16T21:01:00.001-07:00

Long time no see blog readers. Here's a short story I wrote around Halloween 2017.

Hope you enjoy reading this as much I enjoyed writing it.

Certified Ghost Free

Sometimes this ghost-busting job is just not worth it.

I’d just finished up a long, lucrative exorcism contract for a digital forensics firm. While it
had paid well, the job had been exhausting, requiring long days and nights nearly as long. I’d
practically slept there. We’d caught and expelled hundreds of ghosts over the two weeks, staying
the last day only to confirm that we’d ended the haunting. Certified Ghost Free.

The client had been a friend of sorts. He’d taught me as an adjunct professor in my
college days, back before I’d started my ghost-busting business. And he’d approached me with
the intent to pay, not asking me a favor. But a two-man operation like ours expelling over 200
ghosts in less than two weeks is nothing short of miraculous.

After that I was ready for a good long rest. It wasn’t to be.

Duty called. I answered.

The caller was an old friend from high school, name of Seth Jackson. It’s funny how
people come out of the woodwork when you’re in the ghost-busting business. In this digital age
you can keep in touch with just about anybody, but usually it’s confined to being friends on
Facebook. Like some photos, maybe comment on some. Limited contact. Start a ghost-busting
business, and suddenly they have your personal number to call you when they suspect their kid is
being haunted.

Not that I minded really. My old professor had paid well, but I liked the smaller jobs. It
was more personal. Though I suppose it was plenty personal for the specters that had haunted
him and his business. Most of them had been suicides—committed after his company had proven
they’d cheated their spouses. And one particularly nasty one for cheating on his taxes.
I drove down a few hours to meet the kid who was being haunted. Just to observe, at first.
Verify there really was a haunting. Imagine my surprise when, upon walking into the school, the
first person I met was my old ghost-busting partner, Jobadiah Tucket.

Tucket and I had been old Army buddies. He’d been my sergeant in fact. Within a few
years of getting out of the Army we’d gotten together and started our little ghost-busting
operation, basing it on some of our experience together in the Army. My ghost-busting company
now. Tucket had sold me his share and gotten out. Couldn’t take the stress of the job anymore.
Hard to blame the guy. There were days I wouldn’t mind going into quasi-retirement teaching
elementary school either. The pay isn’t nearly as good as ghost-busting, but the stress is
somewhat lower. Somewhat. There’s a reason I’ve stuck to busting ghosts.

It turned out that Tucket was Buster Jackson’s teacher—Buster being the kid who was
haunted. And he’d encouraged Seth to call me in the first place. Well, if Tucket thought it was a
haunting, it almost certainly was, but I still did my due diligence. A few hours observation was all
it really took to verify this haunting was the real deal. I’d even paid for a lunch in the cafeteria.

Things would just start floating up around Buster, seemingly at random, and while he was
at about the right age for a sorcerer or magician to start manifesting magic for the first time, he
clearly had no control over it all, frequently bewildered and often frightened by what was
happening. That, and what happened was often mean. Buster would fall, as if he’d been tripped
by an invisible leg stretched out. In the cafeteria, his tray was knocked out of his hands by an
invisible force. When he made it to the table and began eating, food was smeared against his face
and shirt by an invisible hand.

In short, it looked less like a haunting and more like a supernatural grade-school bully.
Well. I knew exactly how to deal with that.

When school ended, I rented a hotel room and set it up as a supernatural safe house.
My approach to ghost-busting has always been as mystical as technological, though I’ve
never used a proton pack like in the movies. Holy water? Yep. I’ve used it. Magic potions and
alchemy? I’ve used those too. Just don’t expect me to tell you how. Those are trade secrets. Same
as the technological methods, the spirit shields and traps I’ve largely designed myself.
What people don’t realize is that the most important part of ghost-busting is not the
gadgets or magic. It’s your brain. Once you’ve established that there is a spectral presence, and
yes I have technological and magical tools that confirm that, the most important thing you can
do is intelligence gathering. Do some reconnaissance. Why is this spirit hanging on to the world
of the living?

Contrary to popular wisdom, ghosts don’t always hang on because they have some
purpose to fulfil. Unfinished business as it’s called. That can happen, but that’s just one
explanation among many. Some spirits can hang on by sheer force of personality. I suspect this
one was just too mean to move on.

It was pretty easy to establish that until a few months ago, Buster Jackson had been the
frequent victim of a bully. Why had it stopped? If you guessed a tragic accident involving playing
too close to the railroad tracks, you’d be right. Sad for the bully’s parents and a tragedy for the
community, but Buster Jackson’s life had immediately improved. Until the past few weeks, when
the haunting began.

I moved the whole family to the room I’d set up at the hotel and prepared to spend the
night at the Jackson residence myself. Normally I might have had my new business partner or
one of our interns do it, but I hadn’t brought any of them along on this job. It was me or no one.
So, I settled in to wait. I expected the ghost to waste some time trying to break into the
hotel room. Ghosts aren’t stupid. They know where to go to get to who they’re haunting. They
just never believe that my safeguards will work.

I had a book and some music, and was singing along to Michael Jackson when I noticed a
vase start to float up into the air. Show time.

The ghost started throwing things. Honestly, it was straightforward from there. The ghost
was mostly throwing things at me, so it was simple to catch most of it and save it from being
destroyed. It was a bit of a workout, but the ghost of a 10-year-old bully did wear out before me.
The last things thrown at me were the fridge magnets, spelled out to say, “FutGuster
Jackson.” The bully’s nickname for Buster. I didn’t bother catching these, allowing them to litter
the floor. Easy enough to clean up later. I sprayed down the ghost with ectoplasm, and then
grabbed it. I can touch the spiritual plane, anyone can, as long as I have sprayed it down with
ectoplasm first. And if you don’t mind the feel of slime. I don’t. Not much anyway.

And I spoke the Commands. Ghosts are much like computers: if you know how to give
the right input, they’ll do exactly what you want. The commands I spoke expelled the ghost bully
from the physical world and into the Beyond. The Spirit World. Ghosts remain in our world
because at the moment of death, that spirit decides not to go. And once that choice is made, here
they remain, at least until someone like me comes along and kicks them into the afterlife where
they belong. And we’re not as rare as you might think. I’m just the guy who made a business of it.
And that was basically it for the case. Nice and straightforward.

Oh, I did my best to straighten up the mess around the house made by an angry
poltergeist, but I got a full night’s sleep, my first in weeks, and then picked up the family from the
hotel and charged them for my services. He could afford it. And then I cleaned up my
protections from the hotel room. Wouldn’t want housekeeping to discover my trade secrets,
would I?

But the best part was knowing 10-year-old Buster Jackson wouldn’t be troubled by his
bully ever again.

The search for a new RSS reader

2013-03-14T12:36:00.000-06:00

When I opened up Google Reader yesterday there was a message for me. Google Reader will be unavailable after July 1, 2013. This is a big deal. I log into Google Reader every day to follow blogs, webcomics, websites, whatever. The usual stuff. So, my problem became: What will I use as my new RSS aggregate? After a short search I settled on Feed Demon. But on Feed Demon I discovered this article. And while Feed Demon is functional, I'm not big on their aesthetic (yes I know the aesthetic on my blog is terrible. This is why I use Google Reader. I don't have to see the design for my or any other site. It is the great equalizer). I also would much prefer to have a browser based reader. So, I've decided to look in on some of these other options. I don't much like Netvibes or Newsblur. Newsblur in particular has some limitations on their free service that don't work for me. Netvibes I don't actually have too much of an issue with, except for they seem to be trying to do way too much with their service. That and they don't have an easy "create an account with Google" option. That's just my laziness coming in of course. Feedly is very functional, and it might ultimately end up as my choice, but I'm waiting to try out The Old Reader. Unfortunately, they've limited the number of imports they can be doing at any time, so I might be waiting for a while until I can try it. Until then Feedly is my de facto new reader. Unless someone has another suggestion or a reason to try one of the ones I've dismissed?

The Mountains of Mist

2013-02-20T22:24:00.000-07:00

I've considered posting this story before. I've recently attempted to begin a new piece of fiction, with less than satisfactory results. Reading and then posting this (with a few minor edits) is my way of showing myself I can write decent fiction. Of course, the story is not without flaws. The pacing feels a little forced towards the end, and of course I'm completely clueless about the processes of tanning and making venison/deer jerky (even writing fiction requires research unfortunately). However, I quite like the voice or narration style I came up with, as well as some of the sentence structures (though if I wrote it now I might include more em-dashes and parenthesis).

I wrote this story as a challenge from a couple of 5th grade girls about two and a half years ago (I was working at an after-school club at the time). My only prompt was the title, "The Mountains of Mist." Somehow I managed to write this remarkably complete story in a weekend. And yes, this story is very poorly tailored for 10-11 year old girls. Needless to say, if I were to become a professional writer that would not be my target audience.

Oh whatever, here's 5k of wordage. Enjoy.

The Mountains of Mist

By Harrison Parker

The mountains of mist were no place to get lost in the middle of winter. For that matter, they were no place to get lost in the rest of the year either. The mountains were perpetually covered, as the name implies, with mist, a showering curtain of drizzling water. One might think that under such a constant faucet of water that the mountains would soon erode completely away. Not so however, since obviously the mountains still stood, and had not yet been reduced to a series of lakes.

Yes, the mountains were continuously deluged with the patter of water, a downfall made louder by the sheer spread of the rainfall, covering the whole thousand mile range, and yet made quieter at the same time by the sheer continuity of the sound—over time one became used to the sound and no longer really heard it unless he (or she) stopped to listen for it. One might get used to anything given enough time.

The hiker had been in the mountains long enough to make it to that point, that is, his ears had grown used to the constant sound of the mist falling and tuned the noise out. He heard it now, if only because he had stopped to rest, and found a convenient alcove of rock to shelter under—a respite from the relentless fall of rain. Truth was, there was nothing else to listen to, except for his breathing, the gurgle of his stomach trying to digest food it didn’t have, and his own voice—though he didn’t bother speaking. Speaking might be dangerous. Not because of fear of causing an avalanche, if the mountains could withstand the constant fall of water a little more noise could not hurt them. He was doing his best to conserve his energy, and at this point talking might rob him of what little he had left. Hopefully he would need his energy for other things. Hopefully.

He had been up in these mountains for weeks at least, though the passage of time and the monotony of the life and the scenery here had robbed him of his ability to track it—that is, the time. Time, too, had robbed him of the food his stomach protested loudly that it had not received, and the companionship that he had begun this journey with. Warmth had also been stolen from him. He had begun this journey warm, well-dressed and well-built. He had had dry tinder in his pack, and matches. He had had a pack.

He was cold—very cold. Constant rain had soaked slowly through his clothes over time, eventually soaking him too. Without fire he couldn’t dry out anymore, and it was foolish to even hope that the rain might cease, even for a few moments. His pack had had spare clothes too, and blankets to keep warm. He had been very well prepared when he’d set out. At least, that’s what he and his friends had thought. How wrong time, and these infernal mountains had proved them all.

He was shivering violently, his body using precious energy trying to warm up. Energy food could no longer supply. His body was lean now, much leaner than it once had been. Weeks of little food—nothing really, except for what little he could forage—had his body breaking down muscle for energy now. His clothes, once well-fitting, now hung limp and baggy off his huddled body--damp and heavy they clung to him, with a slow drip contributing to the sheens of mist.

The hiker knew he could not take much more of this. He needed to get warm, but to be warm he needed to dry, and he had no way to make fire. Hah, the mountains of mist were no place to be lost even in the best of times, and now it was the heart of winter. The cold acerbated the already chilling effect of the mist, and together they were killing him. He might have been alright, had he not lost his pack and with it all his supplies. His food, his clothes, his blankets, his tinder and matches had been in it. They were all gone with it.

Tinder and matches! He remembered now dimly, through the sheer exhaustion that clouded his mind, the mind that tried desperately to escape the body’s plight by immersing itself in memories of being indoors, of a roaring fire in the hearth, of hot food in the stomach, and a warm bed to sleep in. He remembered, packing, slipping some spare tinder and matches into a few secret pockets sewn into his clothes. The tinder was useless by now, surely soaked and in no condition to burn, but the matches should still be good. They had been coated in wax, waterproof. They needed to be, up in the mountains of mist.

He fumbled, elated, with numb, slippery fingers for the pocket. He had them out when it occurred to him. The tinder was wet. The matches would light, true, but he only had so many, and each would only last a few minutes at most, and would provide no lasting warmth, which is what he desperately needed. Without anything to light, without his tinder dry, his matches were as useless to him as if he truly hadn’t had any.

In his excitement he had lifted, his shoulders had risen, he had sat up a little, but now he shrunk again, his shoulders drooped back down, and he slouched deeper than he had before. It seemed to him he had come to this moment before, despair turning to hope, then back to despair. He slumped still lower—and his back came up against something. Something that was dry in this soaked landscape. It felt like wood.

The hiker froze, eyes wide open. Could it be? Was the means of his continued survival, even if only for one night, assured? Slowly, as if careful not to startle a wild animal, or as if to conserve the precious energy he needed so badly, he rose, and shifted his position. Yes, there it was: a small log.

But a log would do him no good, unless he could get a fire going well enough to light it. But this still seemed familiar, as if this was still the same scene he had been through more than once. He settled his weight down again, and against the incessant patter of the mist on rock and gravel he heard a rustle. The rustle of dry leaves crackling. How could this be? The mountains of mist soaked everything; he knew that well by experience.

It was dark now. Night had fallen. How had he survived so long? How, he knew he’d been here, lost and wandering, for weeks at least, though the return of some of his reason told him it had been longer. It had been late summer, headed into early fall when his little expedition had set out. It was now the dead of winter, which meant that it had been months at least. How had he survived? How?

Curiosity now drove him, more even than the survival instincts which had brought him this far. He should be dead after months alone in the mountains of mist, especially now that winter had come. More memory resurfaced. They’d been gone, weeks, over a month when it had happened. Fall had started in earnest by the time. His memory shut down again. He couldn’t bear to face it. Whatever it was, it was too much. He shouldn’t be alive.

So how, how could it be? That question, more than anything, brought the matches back to his fingers. He picked one, placed the rest back in the pocket, and lit it. Not for warmth. This scene seemed so familiar, and he shouldn’t be alive. That was why, and for light, so he could see.

He lit the match and stepped back. The match’s meager light did little to illuminate the space below the alcove which served as his shelter. It did show him a small pile of leaves, presumably swept up by the wind here to dry as it received respite from the rain. It also showed a pile of similarly dried pine needles, of related origin. He also now saw that the log he had leaned against was just a part of nearly a whole tree that apparently had fallen against the alcove and splintered into bits. How had that come to be?

His mind once again raced, searching to find how it had happened. What had caused it? He had been something of an expert on the mountains, before he had come here. The tree, what was left of it, had scorch marks. It had lit on fire? Impossible, in these mountains nothing was ever dry enough to ignite. This cursed, incessant rain saw to that.

How then? The match burned out in his hand from a strong puff of wind. Wind. Wind was usually associated in the mountains with exceptionally strong storms, one of the few times the mist removed from the mountains of mist. The storms usually only occurred in winter, but had been known to occur in the fall as well. The storms also included lighting.

Lightning! That was it. Trees struck by lightning here would ignite briefly, but any flames would be instantly quenched. That would explain it.

He stood there, grinning in exultation in the dark and shivering from the damp, and the wind that had picked up. Until another particularly strong gust blew the hood off his head. Survival instinct kicked in once again, and he surveyed his situation. He was wet, cold, and the indications were that a strong storm was coming in, with the accompanying likelihood of flashfloods. He had no food, as he’d been unable to forage anything during the day. There was however a supply of dry leaves and pine needles, which would not quite be ideal kindling but would do, as well as splintered pieces of lightly scorched tree, some of which would be suitable for breaking up into kindling, and the rest of which would work for longer burning, well, somewhat longer. It was pine, which was much better suited for a quick burn, but this was much better than freezing to death.

His hands expertly built up the fire for ideal burning, he lay down on the cold earth to block the wind, his match lit the kindling, and soon he had built up a fire, fully illuminating the alcove of his shelter. He looked around, for the first time taking in his surroundings. He had been wrong to think that the stone outcrop formed an alcove to provide his shelter. Well, he had been right rather, but his view was incomplete. It was actually the entrance to a cave, which had been carpeted by the passage of time. Time and the deposit of several year’s worth of leaves and pine needles.

He stuck a broken off branch into the fire, pressing it into service as a makeshift torch. Not perfect, but it would do. As it ignited on the end he pulled it back out. He wasn’t sure why he was expending this energy into investigating the cave, not when a short time ago he’d been conserving his all into mere survival. Maybe it was that now, for the first time all day, he was warm and dry—or at least warmer and drier, it was impossible to be totally warm or dry up here. He’d always been curious. Yes, he always had to know why. That was why he was here, alone, in the mountains of mist, miles from his home and anyone he knew.

He peered into the cave, pushing his torch in. He wasn’t sure what he expected, but surely not what he saw. To accompany the carpet of leaves and pine needles he’d previously noted there was a large pile of the same accumulated against the rear wall of the cavern. The difference was, whereas the carpet had clearly built up as a result of wind pushing the debris into the cave, the pile seemed to be the result of flooding carrying the same debris against the wall.

Flooding was a constant danger in the mountains of mist. Especially in the winter, as the hiker knew by experience. He shied involuntarily from that thought. With constant onslaught of water coming down, pools constantly built up in the earth and rock, and the water would reach a tipping point, carrying earth, stone, and plants away in furious flash floods, avalanches, and landslides. This was the primary danger of the mountains in winter. The cold and wet you could prepare for. The flash floods were unpredictable—well they were actually, but by the time the signs came it was too late. The wind picking up was the first sign. The only hope then was to anchor to a sturdy rock. The trees in the mountains wouldn’t do it. All the plant life was carried away easily in any mass erosion occurring; the constant supply of water had the flora develop shallow root systems that were insufficient for survival in those circumstances. The preferred equipment to anchor with was chains, obviously, but unfortunately they were entirely impractical—too heavy—so ropes were inevitably the equipment resorted to. Anchoring was the best hope, but not much of one. Travelers were all too easily swept away, whatever precautions were taken.

The wind was the first warning; it began to pick up sometimes hours before the floods occurred. Then you still had some time, time to head home if you were still close enough—which was easy for most who ventured into the mountains of mist, because few came far—or anchoring as a hope if you were too far to make it in time. The second sign was the lightning. It would flash, sometimes once, sometimes much more, all over the mountains. By then it was all over, and all that could be done was pray. Once the lightning struck, at most there were moments until the dam broke, and then the trickle became a flood.

The wind was the first warning. The wind had been picking up! He had been so preoccupied with building his fire, with investigating the cave, and lost in his thoughts, that he’d forgotten the warning signs! And here he was, staring at the wall of a cave. A cave that had all the signs of being the very place any flooding would head directly to. But where could he go? He was still damp, and he was chilled, for looking into the cave had taken him away from the fire.

Turning back to the fire he saw that it had died down some. He moved quickly to the pile of wood he had quickly and mechanically prepared, tossed his burning branch into the fire, and added more wood to the fire. Where could he go? Shelter was one thing, but it wouldn’t help any if he was washed into the stone wall of the cave. He’d surely break bones at the least, and up here, alone, that would serve effectively as a death sentence.

Where to go? He was unlikely to find another place with dry kindling and wood so handily available. In many ways he could not have found a more perfect shelter, yet he could hardly stay when he knew a flood was coming and when this was obviously a favorite route for the floods.

He stood motionless, staring at the fire, as he grappled with himself, undecided. A flash seared across his vision in the distance—lightning. The low roar of thunder roared in his ears—again, a flash, a streak of light, followed by the same low rumbling. That one had been closer. It looked like the choice had been made for him. He had to stay, if only because he had a chance here. If he went into the open his death was now certain. The deluge started.

It wasn’t what he had expected. Lightning fell and fell, with the thundering now nearly constant. It was a wondrous light show. It happened sometimes. Back in the village, where he had come from, you could see it sometimes, the rain of lightning. It was an amazing thing to see, like nature’s fireworks, accompanied with the knowledge that the nearby streams would be full for weeks afterward, and that there would be no shortage of water in the well.

Still he watched, awestruck and entranced. That he knew of, no one had ever been in the mountains of mist to see this. No one had ever been this close, had this good a view of the lightning rain. Certainly no one had lived to tell about it.

Even that cheerful thought could not dissuade him from watching. He would almost certainly die up here regardless. In the best of times journeying in the mountains was a reckless gamble, and it was not the best of times now. If he was going to be here now, he might as well witness one of the most majestic sights anyone could ever see.

As unexpected as it had begun, the lightning rain ceased. The hiker leaped away from the fire, behind a large section of scorched tree he hadn’t included in his pile of firewood. It was a good spot, right beside the entrance of the cave. It was his best chance of avoiding being swept up in the flood.

He remained hopeful. There was still a chance, there was always a chance, that the flooding wouldn’t come his way; that the water wouldn’t build up and break apart whatever area would bring the water rushing directly towards him and his shelter. Coming into the mountains of mist was a gamble, true, but even the worst gamble came with odds, however slim, of success—or in this case survival.

He looked out into the dark landscape, which moments ago had been so bright, and strained to see. His eyes had not yet readjusted to the dark, they hadn’t had time. So too his ears were still recovering from the constant clap of thunder, so he couldn’t even hear the rushing sound of the water coming down, mercilessly wearing away at rock and stone. Still he watched and he listened, hoping that if any chance presented itself he would catch it in time. A chance for what, he did not know, but he waited tensed and motionless, prepared for anything.

His sight and hearing recovered as the moments passed. He could hear the rushing sound of the waters crashing down all around the alcove, and above too. By now he was beginning to relax. He knew, or suspected—and above all fervently hoped—that if by now the flood had not yet arrived to carry him away to his death, it never would. And his hopes were proved right. After half an hour of waiting and watching, the rain reduced to its normal misty drizzle. He had survived to face death again, one more day.

The flow of water across the ground continued, carrying rocks, earth, plants, and everything that had come into its path with it. Including, it seemed, a deer, which had now become entangled in a fortunate bush that had not been carried away in the onslaught. After the hiker fished the deer out of the bush he discovered that the deer had not nearly been so lucky. Near as he could figure, the deer had struck its head against a rock and been killed.

Well, that deer’s misfortune was a pure stroke of luck for the hiker. He could not remember the last time he had eaten. Well, he couldn’t remember much of anything right now, but he was sure he hadn’t had anything regularly since his group—again his brain rebelled from that line of thought. He lost himself in a daydream of what he could do with the deer. He could eat the meat, obviously. The bones could probably serve as tools, with some work. And with the skin he could make clothes, he could fashion a new pack. It would even serve as a new blanket, to replace those he had lost. Eventually his thought became more practical. Obviously he would have to choose between those, and even a large deerskin would be hard-pressed to service as a full set of clothes for him.

This thought crashed him back down to reality. None of this would be possible without a knife, and his pack had washed away—but he had never kept his knife in his pack. He kept it on his belt, which he still had. Compulsively his hand reached down, felt for the knife, and unsheathed it.

That done he set to work, skinning the deer. Occasionally he would reach out into the river and snatch likely looking bits of flotsam, tree branches mostly. He needed to cook the meat, and making a spit seemed the most likely way. He worked mechanically, preparing the spit, fixing the skin for tanning, cutting up the meat to be cooked, throwing more word on the fire as it was needed. The process occupied him, and young as the night was, it was nearly dawn by the time he was finished, and all the meat was cooked. He wasn’t really sure how to cure the hide, or turn the meat into jerky, but he did the best he could. He didn’t have salt to help the meat last, but the cold should help, and the mountains of mist never had bugs, the incessant rain kept them down. An idea had struck him as he worked, and he had prepared the skin in a way so that hopefully it could serve as both a pack during the day—for carrying the meat if nothing else—and a blanket at nights.

His mind was numb from exhaustion. He had wandered all day, and worked all night, on nothing but a few bites of the meat he had prepared. Just as he was about to curl up and sleep away the rest of the night, the sun came up. Every sunrise for months the hiker had been awakened by the most surprising part of life in the mountains. Each morning, for a brief moment, the mist parted as the heat from the sun burned through it.

The hiker sighed, and then stretched as the sigh became a yawn. He oriented himself. If the sun came up there, then that was the east, and he wanted to go that way. He pointed off in a direction relative to the sun for himself, and then gathered up the meat, checked over the campsite to make sure he wasn’t leaving anything, matches and his knife were his primary concerns, and headed off in the directions he had chosen. He left the fire still burning.

He walked and he walked, and he walked some more. He foraged some as he went, though all he found were some mushrooms, which he ate. Mushrooms were the only reason most people came into the mountains. The constant damp made the place an ideal breeding ground for the things. He was still deep enough in the mountains that no one had come here to collect them, so those he found were bigger than those he had been used to. Berries were another big item that came down from the mountains, though since it was winter they were out of season and he didn’t find any. He was sick of mushrooms. They were all he’d had for months, he was sure of that. But mushrooms were better than starving, so even those he didn’t eat he plucked up and stored in his bag.

After no time at all, it seemed the night approached again, and he began his search for the night’s shelter. Before long he found another likely looking alcove and made his way there. When there he once again found the broken up tree, the pile of leaves and pine needles, so in no time at all he once again had built up a fire, and this time warmed up the venison. Tonight the sense of déjà vu was stronger than before, if only because now he had clear memories of the night before. This night was much different than the last had been. There was no wind, no lightning rain, and no flooding.

He curled up in front of the fire under his makeshift blanket, and fell asleep. With sleep came dreams. His body twitched and thrashed as his mind conjured up memories into his dreams, things he had blocked from his mind, things he had avoided thinking of for days. He saw, clearly, as his companions were pulled away in a flash flood, his hands seemingly tied, or perhaps weighted to his sides, so that he could not reach out and save them. His scream, released while he was still asleep, pierced the quiet of a night otherwise silent. He saw himself, wandering through the mountains, coming to alcove after alcove, each conveniently having what he needed to start a fire, while he struggled to remember that in fact he did have matches to start one, waking again the next morning, choosing his course—roughly south-eastern, towards his village—and wandering some more. Over and over again, he saw each scene replay: his companions torn away from him in a roaring river, foraging mushrooms, seeing lightning rain, always narrowly avoiding the floods.

The hiker woke, shivering, at dawn. The fire—what had been the fire last night—had long ago died out and become nothing more than cold ashes and scorched logs. The blanket was a welcome change, even if he still was cold. But where had it come from? And the meat and mushrooms, carefully put away in a crudely made box of firewood? Did he have some mysterious benefactor? He didn’t think so, all this seemed familiar, not as if it had happened before, but like it had a familiar signature, a hand in it of someone he knew. The fire, clearly he had lit it, that was clearly him, but he couldn’t remember doing it. In fact, the box, the meat, and mushrooms all seemed like him too. How could he not remember any of this?

The sun again broke through the mist. It was dawn. Compulsively he oriented himself to it again, reaching out with his hand and pointing the way he wanted to go. Then he paused, considering. This break in the mist was longer than usual, he could see more than usual, more than the mountains. He could see smoke, smell woodsmoke. A village was nearby, his village!

Just as this epiphany occurred to him, the sun faded, and the mist reasserted its dominance over the mountains that were named for its continual presence. The break had been short, in truth not much longer than usual, mere moments. Yet everything had changed in that time for the hiker. The increase in the break of the mist at dawn meant he was close; he had nearly escaped the mountains.

He gathered his things, knowing now that they were his, and how they had gotten there. As the mist had been pierced by the sun, so had the mist over his memory lifted, in part. The hiker moved on. Moving purposely as he hadn’t for months, he resolutely headed towards his home, munching on mushrooms and venison as he went.

He made good time, but he still had quite a ways to go towards noon when the wind picked up. For the first time all morning, he hesitated. He was close, closer than he had been for months to his only goal, but the truth was in the few hours he had until the flood would begin he would still not be near enough to make it in time. A nearby alcove would be his best chance—he knew that anchoring was functionally useless in the floods; his team had been well anchored when they were swept away, the ropes had simply snapped. Besides he had no rope, and sheltering in the alcoves had not failed him once in the months he had been here.

His eagerness to get home overcame his reason, however, and he broke into a run towards home. His emaciated body could not sustain the action, and he soon collapsed, panting as he removed his face from the rocky, muddy ground. After a moment he pushed himself back up, and he forced himself onwards again, as fast as his aching body would allow. Then, when he had caught his breath, he forced himself again to a run. Again, he collapsed, and again he pushed on. On and on it went, until his reason resurfaced, and even then he went on, only now he was looking around, hoping to find one of the alcoves that had served such perfect shelter for him in the past. Several hours had passed by then, and he knew his time was running out. He was walking when he saw what he needed.

He’d just altered his path when the lightning started. One, two, three, strikes hit home. It was still too far away! He wouldn’t make it; it would take a miracle. He picked up his pace, scrambling over the rocky terrain, desperate to survive. One more strike fell, and then the dam broke loose and the floodgates opened. He still had time, he was nearly there. But the already slick ground became increasingly treacherous, and he nearly fell with every other step. He didn’t stop to regain his balance, but kept moving over the increasingly slippery ground.

The hiker was practically going forward on his hands and knees when it happened. A pool on the mountain above him had built up to the breaking point and it gave, pulling an avalanche of earth and stone with it. Helpless as it hit him, the hiker was swept away. His already sore and weakened body would have had no chance fighting the current in the best of circumstances. As it was he could barely struggle at all.

The massive mass displacement carried him effortlessly toward a nearby ravine. The hiker had only time as he was hurled over the edge to take a breath, glimpse the river below, and the other side, before he struck his head and lost consciousness.

************************************************************************

When the hiker woke again, he had washed up on the bank of a stream. He was soaking wet, his muscles burned, and he had lost his pack again. But for the first time in months, the sky above him was clear and cloudless, there was no incessant patter of rain—it seemed almost eerily quiet—and for the first time in so long, he could feel the sun on his face. He was still cold, he was bruised and scraped up from his tumble through the turbulent rapids of the mountain river during the downfall, but somehow, miraculously, he was alive. He had lived through months alone in the mountains of mist.

His journey was not yet over. He trudged along the river, towards his home village. He was in familiar territory now, and simply had to follow the landmarks he knew. It was even easier than that, since the river would lead him right there.

The village was in sight when he saw figures approaching him, greeting him. Three were the members of his ill-fated expedition. They had survived, likely the same way he had, and been carried by the river systems nearly all the way home.

Yet they were not the reason for the smile on his face, nor for the tears on his face and cheek. He was home. He was finally and safely home. He wrapped his arms around his wife and child—and began planning his next trip into the mountains of mist.

Back

2013-01-31T23:51:00.000-07:00

I finally linked my blog to google+. Which apparently did nothing except for change me from being harsothehero or whatever to just being me. Which is annoying. Because, ever since I reset my aggiemail password in December, the precarious balance in the relationship between my gmail and aggiemail accounts has been greatly upset. Meaning, they no longer peacefully coexist the way they used to. Which means now I have to log in to aggiemail, and then add my gmail account if I want to access both email accounts at once. Which I always do. And since I'm considering starting up on this whole blogging thing again I've now discovered that even with that all set up, I have to log out of aggiemail entirely and back into gmail separately to access blogger. Hopefully, the google+ linkage will help with this, but I doubt it at this point, because it really didn't do anything that I can tell. Also, I'm currently active on goodreads, twitter, and somewhat on google+. But I won't add you on facebook unless I actually know you at least a little bit (and if you're here chances are you're on my facebook anyway because I do know you. At least a little bit anyway). Oh, and google+ has an excellent Terry Pratchett community. Oh, and those google+ links may be really weird. The urls look way funky and unspecific to me so let me know if they don't work.

Praises for Pratchett (in which I take my media addiction way too seriously)

2012-09-13T19:03:00.001-06:00

You might say, or rather, one might say, that I’ve been on quite the Terry Pratchett kick lately. This is, in a matter of speaking, true, but I would consider it more accurate to say my entire life has been one gigantic Terry Pratchett kick since I was, say, 13. Terry Pratchett was the author of the first books I purchased after returning home from my mission, excluding textbooks—they don’t count. Of course, this past summer I expanded my Pratchett readings beyond the usual Discworld novels, into one of his earlier works—Strata—and into his YA novels. I also read Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agenes Nutter, Witch, his popular collaboration with author Neil Gaiman. And what a book that was, wildly clever in the way only Terry Pratchett can be. The Fallen Angel, the Cherubim guarding the Tree of Life, and the Son of Satan starring in: The Apocalypse. If only I was half as clever as Pratchett and Gaiman are working together; if only I could be half as clever as either! Any cassette left in a car over a fortnight becomes Queen’s Greatest Hits. That particular element is made even funnier since all the characters ever want to listen to is classical stuff. This results in stuff like “The Four Seasons” by Vivaldi being sung by Freddie Mercury in E flat. Though since I’m not a student of classical music that might be completely wrong. It was just a for instance anyway. Oh, to study music again . . .

Anyway, this was not an entry designed to laud the sheer Awesomeness—with a Capital A—of Good Omens, especially since I’ve already proved I’m not going to wax eloquent on the subject, but rather to bemoan a more recent collaborative effort. Pratchett’s most recent entry, The Long Earth with Stephen Baxter, lacked well everything I look for when I read Terry Pratchett. The distinctive wit, satire, humor, whatever-you-want-to-call-it was missing. In short, though I’ve never read Baxter before, I assume it read like a Stephen Baxter novel. This is not to say that it wasn’t a good novel though. It was. It was a great novel. Just not what I expect when I pick something up with the name Terry Pratchett on the cover.

Thanks to Amazon I now have Terry Pratchett’s next novel on hold (Amazon emailed me telling me it was coming out). In other news, I now have the Logan Library eating out of my hand (figuratively speaking of course. Firstly because a Library is an institution, not an organism, and can only eat figuratively, not literally. Second because I’m not about to let anyone actually eat out of my hand. And thirdly because even in the unlikely event that I offered to have someone eat out my hand I doubt they would want to). They are ordering five books just because I suggested them. Four are part of Kevin Hearne’s Iron Druid Chronicles, and the other is the only book their collection is missing from Rick Riordan’s Trey Navarre adult mystery series (which I love), Widower’s Two-Step. I actually requested another book as well, the third installment of C. Alexander London’s Accidental Adventures, We give a Squid a Wedgie (Awesome title, right? The other titles are We are not Eaten by Yaks, and We Dine with Cannibals), but they didn’t order it because apparently the hardcover edition was canceled. But the paperback is still on for this spring!

And of course I’m reading a biography on Herge (creator of Tinton) and have a whole stack of books (two actually) of stuff to read from the library. But school is keeping me busy, and I’ve started watching Cheers, a show which I may find disproportionately funny, and TV season is about to start, and sometimes I think I take my media addiction way too seriously. Oh, and I found a whole new YA series to read, which already has eleven installments. It’s Joseph Delaney’s The Last Apprentice, which I believe is part of the horror genre, which is new to me. I found out that Chris d’Lacey finished The Chronicles of the Last Dragon with The Fire Ascending, so now of course I have to read that too. But for right now, I really should get to some homework (these reflections/responses and lesson plans won’t make themselves you know!). Also, have I mentioned that I've been intending to cut back on blog post frequency, only to have it happen spontaneously?

The Mysterious Quantum Thief

2012-08-27T22:06:00.000-06:00

So, I should be reading this book by some dude by David Brin. You know, the final installment of some Second Foundation Trilogy. It’s totally not a big deal at all. (actually I probably should be doing my math methods homework, but whatever). Instead I’m blogging. Part of the reason is because I haven’t gotten into it yet is because I just read The Quantum Thief, which was just an amazing novel. I’ll try not to rhapsodize on it too much, but this is sci-fi stuff I’ve never read before. I’m not the biggest sci-fi connoisseur, so I’m guessing stuff like this actually has been done, but what’s-his-face who wrote it did a great job. Hannu Rajaniemi is his name.

I really don’t know how to explain what exactly he does in this novel. I won’t go into the plot bits, but what I found most interesting about this novel, aside from his excellent characters and their interactions, is what he’s done with time. Time travel is obviously a sci-fi element that’s older than time, and that’s not exactly what he’s doing. What he’s done is taken time and tried to do something else with it besides travel, and that’s make it into a currency that’s spendable. That’s the very best I can do to explain it but it’s more complicated than that, of course. Anyway, it’s great sci-fi, and I enjoyed it a lot more than the first two novels of the Second Foundation trilogy. I believe I mentioned before how entirely unnecessary this continuation beyond Asimov’s grave is, right?

The other reason I’m not reading? Perhaps it’s lack of focus due to sleep deprivation. Or maybe I’m just not choosing to share everything. Because, you know, I’m mysterious.

SPIDER-BLOG

2012-08-02T12:00:00.000-06:00

NOTE: I wrote this about 3 weeks ago, when I saw the movie around my birthday. Why the wait? Pictures. I'm not a picture man. Basically this is my initial reaction to the movie, which can probably be summed up by: OMG Emma Stone makes a gorgeous blonde!! OK, there might be more to it than that. Maybe.

So, I gone done gone went and saw The Amazing Spider-Man finally. I know, I know. I’m behind the times. What can I say, that’s how I roll. Twenty years behind. In another twenty years I might find out what’s up with this Justin Bieber character I keep hearing about.

Anyway, I pretty much loved this movie. I really should preface this with the fact that I am pretty much an avid Spider-Man fan in general. This is after all parkerisspiderman.blogspot.com. There’s a reason for that. I’m not joking I literally have a Spider-Man pillow and blanket. Let me show you.

See. I’m slightly Spider obsessed. Just a little bit. Obviously. (Picture from my mission apartment in Sultan, WA. I'm pretty sure anyway)

My Spider-Man obsession goes back a few years, starting when I was a kid in the 90s. I watched the cartoon series of the time, and liked it, due in part to the awesome Joe Parry theme song. Later, I started picking up Spider-Man toys for the sole purpose of getting the free classic Spidey comics they came with. This led to my subscription to the then new Ultimate Spider-Man series, which led to my following Brian Michael Bendis, which is a different story altogether—ultimately due to Payson City post office issues I ended my subscription. I also discovered graphic novels about this time, and got a couple of those, more to fill the gaps in the story due to missing issues than anything. As a note, I really feel graphic novels are the way to go reading comics. No ads, and you get a full story arc, as opposed to just a single issue of the arc—and yes, most comic authors these days do write in arcs these days if you didn’t know. It gives them opportunity to explore the characters more and gives a chance for more depth, at least in theory.

Then it kinda ended for me for a while, except for occasionally browsing comics at libraries and bookstores , which is when I originally caught The Other sequence by J. Michael Straczynski (which I still can’t spell). Then, when I finally started using the Logan Library about a year ago, I caught the bug again, and started reading both the Ultimate, and Amazing storylines.

Which brings me to the current movie. I’ve gotta say, I wasn’t sold on Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker/Spider-Man. Of course, I’d never heard of him before, but I think that Spider-Man, and particularly Peter Parker, is a very difficult character to portray. If you think about it, he’s a nerd/geek that becomes a cool, athletic dude after he’s bit by a spider. That’s the Peter Parker I see anyway. In the previous movies, which I fairly liked, Peter is played by Tobey Maguire, who in my not-at-all-humble opinion did a terrible job. Is that Peter Parker either geeky or cool? No. He’s really dopey and dweeby. Andrew Garfield in contrast, I think doesn’t do a good job portraying the intelligence a geek/nerd would have, but portrays the social awkwardness inherent in that well. He also does a good job playing the cool part. In other words, this Peter Parker is a huge step up over the last. The problem I have is the voice. I’ve watched too many Spider-Man cartoons over this summer to not have specific expectations of the voice of Peter Parker/Spider-Man. And Andrew Garfield didn’t do it for me.

I think cartoon adaptations do a better job with superhero stories because the mediums are ultimately more similar. Meaning I find cartoons and comics to be closely related. Plus, the artists can design the characters to look how they should, so then you just have to find someone who sounds right for the part. Which for Spider-Man, I love Rino Romano, Neil Patrick Harris, and Christopher Daniel Barnes, who voiced for Spider-Man Unlimited, Spider-Man: the New Animated Series, and Spider-Man: The Animated Series respectively. I’ll get to those in a moment, since I don’t know that I’ve been over them before—and I should have. I hope I have, and if I have, well, this won’t be the first time I’ve repeated myself.

Other notes on Amazing: To me, the Lizard isn’t the Lizard without his snout. See here?

It’s not a huge difference, but it makes him look like The Lizard.

Final note on the movie before going into the cartoons. Emma Stone. Wow. Who knew that she was a natural blonde? I sure didn’t. But she is, and she looks great blonde—Emma Stone maybe just plain looks great. I also think she was just plain a great casting decisions. She was definitely brainy in the film, though I’m not sure if she was in the original series or not. She definitely wasn’t in the Ultimate version. The irony is that in Spider-Man 3 they had a blonde as Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst) and a redhead as Gwen Stacy (Bryce Dallas Howard). I think they pulled it off better than say, Angelina Jolie in Salt.

Yeah, we’ll pretend like that hair color is real on you. Of course, I’m just a Salt hater. I preferred The Tourist—perhaps Johnny Depp makes everything better.

And, on second thought, I might just save my thoughts on the cartoons for later, or just hope I already said them previously.

The Raging Rampant Narcissist

2012-07-30T12:00:00.000-06:00

I think that it’s impossible, at least for someone as academically oriented as I, to do something like blogging for so long without thinking about the craft or theory behind it. “But, Harsothehero,” you say, “You’re a terrible blogger. What could you possibly be able to tell us about good blogging practice?” To which I say, “Ouch. That cuts me deep man; that cuts me to the core.” But really, even if I don’t actually practice any of these techniques, I, a compulsive blog follower, follow enough blogs that I think I know what it takes to be good (and I can’t resist. It’s got what it takes). So, the remainder of this post is going to be filled with references and links to blogs that I think do things really, really well.

My favorite blog is, oddly enough, my cousin’s weight loss blog—can I say I was way disappointed when these posts stopped when she met her goal, but way excited when they returned, though now I’m not sure it can be called a proper weight loss blog anymore. What I like most about this blog is the consistency of it. She just posted as regularly as could be. It was like clockwork. Other blogs like Elise’s Pieces or Adventures of a DIY Mom—which apparently yesterday I stopped following—do a great job of this as well. Discipline, discipline is the thing. Err, I meant consistency. CONSTANT VIGILANCE!! Again, I mean consistency. If your readers know content is coming, they’ll keep coming back.

This brings me to my next point. Content! What I mean by this is write not for the sake of writing, but because you have something to say—I think I’m particularly bad at this, since for me, honestly, writing is an end to itself. It’s like working at an elementary school. It’s just so awesome I’ll do it for free. I think I’ve gotten better at this. I was particularly bad when resurrecting this deal.

So, while I originally might have planned on simply listing my favorite blogs, which I still might do—this, btw, is me returning to this post at least a week after starting it—I think I’ll go through and say exactly why my blog isn’t actually all that great, despite what all you devoted followers apparently think.

Reason 1) Great blogs generate hits by joining blogging communities. Number of blogging communities I’ve joined? Zero.

Reason 2) Great blogs have great content. I think it goes without saying that I fail at this. Of course, I decided to say so anyway. Content? What content?

Reason 3) Great blogs have wonderful names. EPIC FAIL on my part. (If you wish to tell me a more fitting name for this place than DISCOVERY feel free to tell me) I’m not just talking about my main title either. Several of my post titles are, umm, dumb.

Reason 4) Consistency. Regular series. Junk like that. I obviously have none of that. I think I went over this well above.

But I’m okay with all that. Why? Because my absolute favorite blog breaks at least one of those rules. See? Of course, my other favorite blog is the complete opposite. But the real reason I’m okay with this, is because ultimately, blogging/writing for me is an end unto itself. I could care less whether you read this or not. I write this for myself, and if anyone else should happen to enjoy it, well, that’s just a bonus. (Notice how I basically said exactly that before. Not even basically. I said exactly that.)

What you learn from my blog today is that I’m a raging narcissist who doesn’t get enough attention and who compensates for this by blogging. So, basically, by reading this you are fueling my terrible personality disorder. Don’t you feel terrible? You should never come back. Ever. (ignore that this last paragraph totally contradicts the previous one entirely)

[Insert Clever Mary Poppins related title here]

2012-07-29T18:31:00.000-06:00

Mary Poppins is my favorite movie ever. I say stuff like this all the time, so I suppose I should add a caveat. Mary Poppins is certainly my favorite Disney Movie starring Julie Andrews, Dick Van Dyke, and Mike Tomlinson from 1964. But it’s probably just my favorite movie from 1964. (For other examples of wild movie claims, see right here. Sinbad is the best movie of 2003. Do you see it on Ebert’s list here, or imdb’s list here? Though, to be fair, I haven’t even heard of, much less seen anywhere near half of Ebert’s list, and about the same for imdb’s. Does this mean I’m ranking Sinbad over Return of the King? Yes, yes I am. And Finding Nemo. And the first—and best—Pirates. That’s just a sampling of the kind of asinine things I’ll say about movies. And yes, I honestly enjoy Sinbad more than any of those movies. Deal with it. Yes I’m aware Sinbad is an Arabian nights type tale and this version greekifies it—yes, not a word, yes I know there’s a word that describes what I’m saying perfectly, and no I can’t remember what it is at the moment)

Whoah. Massive side-track there. But do you get my point? (It’s possible that the only lesson here is that I prefer animation to live-action and more traditional animation over CGI animation) And why did this point need to be made? I don’t know. Because, except for possibly My Fair Lady, I’m not sure there’s another film of 1964 that could compete. Goldfinger, Dr. Strangelove, and A Hard Day’s Night might deserve honorable mentions—the final only because it’s The Beatles; I’ve seen it and it’s boring—but nothing else here jumps to my mind. But here I see The Pink Panther, which is an obvious oversight.

And in researching this stuff, I found just another in a long line of reasons to love Mary Poppins—you know, besides that she’s practically perfect in every way, just like a certain friend of mine and if you read this you know who you are—Robert Louis Stevenson the famed deceased author directed it!! (He’s also known for his posthumous writing career as R.L. Stine) I’m kidding of course. The Director is really just credited as Robert Stevenson, but his middle name could be Louis (I’m not going to look it up so don’t burst my bubble for me).

Other reasons I like this movie? How about Walt Disney, Julie Andrews, Dick Van Dyke, the Sherman Brothers, Mike Tomlinson, P.L. Travers, whoever the excellent script writers are, the child actors (I’ve obviously stopped looking things up at this point), the stage crew—I’d also like to take this moment to thank the Academy and wish for World Peace (not Metta World Peace, just world peace). A little overboard there? Yeah. I seem to be a little all over the place today. Just a little bit.

Honestly, this is one of the movies I watch for a lot for the music, but I greatly enjoy other parts of it too. How about the juxtaposition of moving from Mrs. Banks’ number “Sister’s Suffragette” followed by Mr. Banks (Mike Tomlinson) singing “The Life I Lead,” which contains the line “This is the age of men.” That might be something I picked up from listening to the soundtrack, which includes the Sherman Brothers talking about the writing and creative process they went through. How about the incident of the children following the kite into the park starting the film—off screen of course—and then ending with Mr. Banks flying a kite with his kids, and the awesome number “Let’s Go Fly a Kite.” Talk about coming full circle—I wish there was some way to obliquely reference the awesome Kurt Bestor/Sam Cardon album by that name, but apparently subtlety is not my strong suit today.

I guess my point is, I really love Mary Poppins and I watched it today so it’s on my mind. (I definitely didn’t just write this post so the 2-year anniversary of this blog would find this month the second highest number of hits it’s ever got. It’s definitely not that, because if it was, I’d just finish any of the other three posts I have started, or that other writing thing I need to do. Though that has nothing to do with anything. Okay, I’m done. I promise)

The Epic Tale of the Bathroom Baritone vs. the Kitty Cat

2012-07-24T18:01:00.000-06:00

I’ve been practicing my bathroom baritone nightly as I clean the locker rooms at the swimming pool (baritone because I can neither sing high nor low, because of the alliteration and also because of that excellent scene in Hogfather by Terry Pratchett). So, as I’ve been there a few months now, and as I only listened to podcasts while working there until the end of the NBA finals I’ve had a lot of practice and I’m getting good—so you know the acoustics in these rooms really are excellent. I can tell the difference whenever I walk into them.

Anyway, last night there was a cat prowling around the pool. It was meowing like crazy, and then eventually attached itself to me. This cat was—well, I don’t know much about cats. It seemed to me it was not quite full grown, not yet a cat, but no longer a kitten. A kitty cat I’m fairly certain it was a stray, as it had no collar. Because of this I neither touched it nor allowed it to contact me—I was actually fairly jumpy about that. It would have been fairly entertaining to watch. It may actually have been full grown, but I’m simply used to cats being fatter than that.

This kitty cat was my first audience as a bathroom baritone. It got a private show of me singing songs like Epiphany by Trans-Siberian Orchestra and Sledgehammer by Peter Gabriel, complete with some truly terrible and frightening dance moves performed with a squeegee. I was having fun. At least until I discovered where it had pooped on the floor I had just cleaned. Then I began to tyrannize it, my dance moves becoming truly frightening. Perhaps I’m a terrible person for scaring this poor cat, but I enjoyed the whole thing, except for cleaning up the kitty turd.

Student Teaching Application Autobiography--read HELP!!

2012-07-19T20:07:00.001-06:00

So, while I'm on hiatus from school for the summer, unfortunately that does not mean I'm without school related stuff to do. Namely my student teaching application. All is well, for the most part I'm completely done. I am completely done. Except for the autobiography part. Originally, I simply planned to write a compressed personal history as it related to my schooling or whatever. But when I checked my instructions it said that the autobiography was to be geared towards my future students. So then I considered just writing a letter to them. But I didn't like that idea. So I checked online for ideas. You should know, since the vast majority of those majoring in Elementary Education are female, these autobiographies--and I've seen quite a few--tend to be these cutsey, fantsy-schamtsy things. Well, as you may or may not have noticed, I don't do fantsy-schamtsy, and I certainly do not do cutesy. Anyway, the follows is the result, as coming entirely from me, without any outside influence except the dictionary (I had to come up with 3 R words, and for some reason a word for K escaped me). Okay, I lied, A Wreath for Emmitt Till also partially inspired this, at least insofar as ended a line on the word that starts the next goes. And of course, the basic idea was stolen from one of the other examples on the website. Or maybe not, but inspiration at least. Can you imagine actually creating something from a total vacuum, without any outside influences at all? I couldn't begin to list all the influences I have for all I do. Anyway, enough stalling, what I came up with is here. And please give me feedback, suggestions for improvement. This is probably the only time I will ask for it. Here goes:

My excitement over becoming a teacher runs rampant.

Rampant describes my desire to learn and become better, I try to be prolific.

Prolific is a word I hope to use to describe all my students, as well as articulate.

Articulate is how I wish to be in instructing students, not without reason.

Reason is a trait and ability I wish to confer upon all my future students, to be kept Keen.

Keen describes my interest in genre fiction, something I feel in Earnest.

Earnest is the effort I will require of myself and my students in developing our Rapport.

Rapport is a connection I wish to have with all my future students.

Seeing this might also be helpful. The colors simply go through the radiant in Microsoft word, skipping dark blue. The beginning letters of the first words of each line spell out Mr Parker, in black and left aligned to try and highlight this. Clever? Probably not. Best I can do? Probably. Does is work? Is it cool? Suggested changes please, starting now.

HP & HP

2012-07-11T21:31:00.000-06:00

So, one of the consequences of never proofreading anything I blog, and always publishing whatever I write immediately is that there is almost inevitably more for me to write. So this might be considered a sequel or a part two to this morning’s post. But while that post focused on things that surprised me about myself, this one will focus on things I usually associate with my self-identity. Things like considering myself a writer, for example. But, upon reconsideration, I might take this somewhere else entirely.

Do you remember when Harry Potter first came out? I don’t. I remember when I first saw The Sorcerer’s Stone in the Scholastic Book orders though. Do you remember those? I don’t know how much money I spent on those things in elementary school, but it must’ve been a lot. At least, for a kid stuck on an allowance. I didn’t want to read Harry Potter. I didn’t like the cover art. I’m pretty sure I still don’t like the cover art of that one actually. So, being the judge-a-book-by-its-cover type, I refused to read it.

I suppose I should note at this point that I’m apparently rather picky about my art. I know next to nothing about art, but if I’m say reading a comic book, or a watching a cartoon or animated movie to this day my experience with it is greatly influenced by the quality and the style of the drawing. As a kid I never liked the movies Tarzan,Hercules, or The Hunchback of Notre Dame, just because I didn’t like the way the characters were drawn (Today I like Hercules because of the music, Tarzan because of Phil Collins, and I haven’t seen Hunchback since, though I am inclined to believe I still wouldn’t like that one). Watching Spider-Man unlimited a while ago I was greatly distracted by the drawing style, which was much more like a traditional comic book style, until I both adjusted to it, and Spider-Man left Earth for Counter-Earth. Watching Spider-Man: The New Animated Series (aka the Neal Patrick Harris series) I’m continually driven crazy by the 3D CGI graphics. I mean, I like the series overall. I like the dialogue and the voice acting, and I can tell the mark Brian Michael Bendis has made on this series, both in the dialogue and in some of the stories. But I feel like the episodes were placed out of order, and the 3D CGI animation as already mentioned is a huge detriment, except for those few minutes when it doesn’t look like 3D CGI. On the plus side, they did some really great action sequences with this animation that I’m pretty sure would have been impossible to do with more conventional/traditional animation techniques. Also I'm pretty sure the 90s Spider-Man long run had a lot to do with Joe Parry of Aerosmith fame doing that awesome theme song.

I think I was about in 5^th grade when I first starting seeing Harry Potter in those aforementioned book orders. The next year my English Teacher read the Sorcerer’s Stone to our class. Not long after, I owned all of the books that had come out to that point, meaning up to Prisoner of Azkaban. This was the beginning of an obsession of mine. Meaning Harry Potter of course. Fact: I share initials with Harry Potter. HP and HP. Of course, he’s HJP and I’m HLP but still. Fact: I share a birthday with Harry Potter, July 31 (I also share birthdays with JK Rowling and James E Faust). For the next few years, I had a tradition of reading the series each summer. At one point I had a schedule drawn up where I could read the whole series in a day. I knew exactly how long each book would take me too. This was back in the stone ages when the series was only through Goblet of Fire. It had me reading from like 7am to 9pm I think (In a related note, I had a similar schedule with Lord of the Rings. Only I gave myself I week. Not because I needed a week, I only needed 4 days, a book per, since I included The Hobbit in the read. But after two or three days doing nothing but reading I think everyone would need a break).

So, anyway, all this was basically just an intro for me to say I finally joined the pottermore bandwagon (username: AvisStrike2563 should anyone care to add me). It’s pretty cool, mostly because of the whole exclusive content from JK Rowling. The rest of the game I suck at. I’m a failure of a wizard. I can’t cast spells, and I can’t brew a potion worth beans. I’m okay at throwing gnomes over the hedge though. The thing that surprised me was being sorted into Gryffindor. I always assumed I was a Ravenclaw kinda guy. But apparently I’m not as smart as I think I am—what else is new? Apparently I am brave and chivalrous instead.

I guess that’s all, unless I want to pontificate about what my wand says about me. But, if you’re on pottermore you can find out for yourself. Alder with Unicorn, 14 ½ inches, hard.

Also, not posting onto facebook and twitter yields about the same amount of hits as not, so I probably won’t bother anymore.

Surprise: Things I Know About Me

2012-07-11T03:09:00.000-06:00

I have an overactive imagination. I think that’s the ultimate reason I stay up late after work instead of going to bed immediately like I should. And when I have hours to do nothing but mindless menial labor, it’s inevitable that my brain goes haywire. And because part of my self-identity tells me I’m a writer, it’s likewise inevitable that I write some of it up. And, believe it or not I don’t actually post it all here. Take last month for example. I only published 2 posts. I know I wrote more than that in these early morning writing sessions. Some of it was never intended for here, but some of it was, some of it was real good, but I still decided against it. Why? I decided it was too personal. I need to keep myself “mysterious.”

That’s a laugher really, because that’s all I really do, is write about myself, just under the pretext of writing about something else. So here’s me doing it straightforward style. For whatever reason, my mind keeps going back to a conversation I had the other day with a friend. Now, in the context of this conversation I brought up moratorium. Moratorium is a concept from human development that refers to the process of self-discovery young adults go through while they’re deciding what to do with their lives. Like adolescence, moratorium is a modern phenomenon. Due to increased lifespans gained through breakthroughs in medical technology, people today can effectively just mess around until their brains fully develop at about 25. Young adults in moratorium do things like attend college or university, join the Peace Corps or the military. I’m full swing into this whole moratorium thing. I’m diggin’ it.

But I don’t really need to be. To a surprising degree I already know who I am. I’m a child of God. I surprised myself a while ago to learn that contrary to what I’ve thought my whole life, I’m an optimist, not a pessimist. I have this belief that ultimately everything will be okay, everything will be to the good, that God has a plan. I believe that, I really do. I surprise myself every time I realize how much I like people, and how much I need them. I astonish myself with my capacity to love others, without really knowing them that well. When I learned a few weeks ago that summer Institute would be ending in mid-July, I was surprised how disappointed I was, by how much I rely on Institute. I surprised myself when after finally having my records returned to Logan, I quickly texted the Elder’s Quorum President and asked for a Home Teaching assignment. I’m really surprised by how much I love Home Teaching; how I’ve loved those I taught and taught with. And while I’ve known these things before, I’m continually surprised again as I rediscover them and in doing so rediscover myself.

(Note: I'm very close to not publishing this)

Love Letters to John Waite and Steve Winwood

2012-07-10T04:24:00.000-06:00

You know, I really wish I could get home from work at 2 in the morning and just go to bed. But for whatever reason I can’t. So I end up writing blogs posts at 3 in the morning, and I’m sure they don’t make any sense. And these blog posts lead to me looking up youtube music videos. Go figure, it all comes full circle.

My discovery of “The Price of Love” tonight brings John Waite to 4/4 on songs he's sung that I’ve heard. Not bad for a relatively unknown artist, well if you can call someone with 7 top 40 hits, including a #1, as unknown. And that’s not counting his work with Bad English and the Babys or his duet with Allison Krauss--if you listen to nothing else I link to here, listen to that one. Granted, it’s a lot easier to sound great when established songwriters and musicians like Neal Schon, and Jonathon Cain are the accompaniment. And if you’re singing with Allison Krauss I don’t think anybody cares what you sound like as long as it’s not terrible--and trust me, he's not terrible.

But still, “The Price of Love” is definitely one of the better 80s power ballads I’ve heard. I know, I’m obsessed with Journey, and Bad English sounds a lot like Journey—given that Schon and Cain were big parts of Journeys sound and songwriting, this makes sense (they are now certainly the biggest parts of Journey). I think John Waite even sounds quite a bit like Steve Perry, though that I might just be imagining. I like power ballads, but this one stands out to me lyrically.

Your typical power ballad, as exemplified by Foreigners “I Want to Know What Love Is,” (sorry Kelly Hansen fans, but Lou Gramm singing this destroys Kelly singing it. That's just "The Way it Is") which is generally considered to be the original, is basically cheesy, schmaltzy stuff. And this is too. It feels like it’s more though. It seems to realer to me somehow. I’ll pick out some highlights and show you what I mean.

This house is not a home without you

It takes two hearts to share

Your eyes will always see through me

And bring me to my knees

And I will always turn to you

You’re everything I need (and my favorite lines)

And through the good and bad times

You have always been there

We hold each other close (he alternates this with tight. I think it’s just to mess me up while singing along

You tell me it’s alright (and skipping to later)

We’re more than lovers more than friends

There are more good lines of course, I just tried to get the highlights. So, here’s the rest of my John Waite playlist: “Missing You,” “When I See You Smile” with Bad English, and “EverytimeI think of You” with The Babys.

In other news: Steve Winwood plays mandolin (listen to the "Mandolin Rain") on “Back in the High Life Again,” making him officially my new hero. If I was cool, I’d play mandolin. And speaking of good lyrics, I love these as well. Highlights:

It used to seem to me

That my life ran on too fast

And I had to take it slowly

Just to make the good parts last (jumping to next verse)

You used to be the best

To make life be life to me

And I hope that you’re still out there

And you’re like you used to be

What a thought, I’m using this blog to fulfill its original purpose! But what's missing here is the important questions: Does Journey do Bad English songs in their current shows? Did Bad English do Journey and The Babys songs at their shows? As @notbillwaton would say #thingstoponderatnight. (I bet they at least did "Missing You." That's John Waite's signature) Sorry, for all the links I threw in trying to be clever. Enjoy them.

Love Letters to Terry Pratchett

2012-07-05T02:28:00.000-06:00

Last week I raved about Terry Pratchett, one of my very favorite authors. Okay, perhaps I didn’t so much rave as worry about his long-term place in the annals of literature. Since I’ve started on that track let me mention that today I finished reading The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents. It was so much better than Strata. One of the things Pratchett likes to do is take a story and satirize it in the Discworld. This story was the Pied Piper of Hamelin. He’s also done some Shakespeare, and The Phantom of the Opera. Maskerade, his version of Phantom, I especially liked.

But this isn’t going to be another post about Terry Pratchett, though if necessary I could probably write a series of essays on his work that would essentially function as hero-worship love-letters. No, tonight I want to write about one of my favorite Science Fiction authors. And by favorite I mean he’s basically the only science fiction author I read. To whom could I possibly be referring? Isaac Asimov of course! Interestingly, I choose to do this by talking about a book he didn’t write.

If you haven’t noticed I can be rather obsessive about things. Steve Perry, and Terry Pratchett just to name two. As a further example, I’ll tell you I’ve never seen the last two Lord of the Rings movies the whole way through, and then promptly point out to you exactly where the movies diverge from the books. Most of them I’m okay with as they’re simply functions of movie time constraints or whatever. The one that really grates is Faramir taking Frodo to Minas Tirith, which unless I’m greatly mistaken Tolkein wrote could not happen.

With that as your backdrop you can probably understand why I might have some issues reading a novel set in Asimov’s universe of the Foundation written by another. Which brings us to Foundation’s Fear by Gregory Benford. Now, I understand that the Asimov estate basically commissioned this novel and the two others making up the Second Foundation Trilogy. I just, don’t feel another novel, especially what was essentially another prequel covering Hari Seldon’s life was necessary, especially given the content. I was able to buy in somewhat more after reading the afterword, which ironically I read before I finished the book. I can understand having the scientific contradictions between books as Asimov alters things to match the current science. Hence I’m basically okay with travel via wormholes instead of Jumps, though it still seems weird. But the main thing around which the story revolves is the existence of aliens living in Trantor’s internet. As far as I know Asimov’s Foundations books never had storylines that contradicted each other. The Alien’s in this book flat out contradicts Foundation and Earth in which Golan Trevise makes the choice of Gaia over Foundation because Seldon’s psychohistory equations were made with the assumption of no intelligent alien life, an assumption Seldon wouldn’t have made if the events of this book had taken place. Maybe I’m just nitpicking. Whatever. What I’m really saying is I don’t see the need for this novel, especially seeing as the main elements here didn’t really exist in the others and Forward the Foundation ended on what I consider to be the strongest emotional point in the series.

Wow, this has actually been a fairly straightforward post. It was meant to be long and rambling, covering diverse topics like the Eagles, Rebecca Black, deconstructivism, and teachers I used to hate and why. This is what I get for letting my mind ramble at work before I write instead of while I’m writing. I didn’t even mention John Scalzi! What’s wrong with me? Oh, well, my loss is your gain. Enjoy J

The Rise of Terry Pratchett

2012-06-26T03:40:00.002-06:00

So, apparently my creative muse likes to come out at night. This is at least the third time I’ve come home from work, you know, at 2:30 AM, and gotten out my laptop and started writing.

Generally, I just tear through books. Not literally of course, but I just race reading through novels, whole series even. Not so with what I’m currently in.

Strata is by Terry Pratchett. I love reading Terry Pratchett. I think he’s clever, and insightful, and he does a lot of things in his books that I just love. But I can’t get into this book. I wonder if it’s just that I sit down to read it at bad times, but then I think of the other times when I just fell asleep reading. Part of that is certainly explained by my whacked circadian rhythms—see also it’s nearly 3:00 AM as I’m writing this. But I think part of it is the book.

Fans of Terry Pratchett—and if you haven’t heard of him trust me he’s got legions—probably know him primarily from his Discworld novels. Strata predates the Discworld novels, though you can tell the ideas that will eventually become Discworld are there. It’s interesting to see in the author bio that before Terry Pratchett established himself as a top-notch fantasy author he was considered a rising science fiction author. Of course this is not unheard of. George R.R. Martin, author of the A Song of Ice and Fire series also began his career in science fiction before turning to fantasy. Rick Riordan was an award winning mystery writer before he became a bestselling YA fantasy author. But Pratchett’s history was interesting to me because this was entirely new to me.

Many times reading one of Pratchett’s books I’ve seen a particular quote comparing him to Douglas Adams. I’d quote it here, but I can’t seem to find it. What I can find seems to vindicate my opinion that Pratchett is better though J. I’ve always felt that this comparison did a disservice to both authors though. Until now. Now I can finally see it.

The interesting thing about the Discworld series is that it is as far as I know the only series where other readers in recommending it will tell you not to start on the first novel. Just don’t. It’s a great series to read but The Color of Magic is not the place to start. I’d go so far to say don’t start with the second book, The Light Fantastic either. Part of the reason is that to me, both of those books feel dated. They read like they were written in the 80s, which they probably were. But most of the reason is that the feel of Discworld hasn’t been fleshed out yet. It really doesn’t matter which book you start with though. While Discworld is definitely a series, each book is a complete stand-alone novel, with the possible exception of the Tiffany Aching series which I think rely on each other more so than the others. Yeah, that’s right, there’s little mini-series’ within the main series. There’s multiple books following characters like Rincewind the cowardly Wizzard, Sam Vimes of the Ankh-Mopork City Watch, and Granny Weatherwax the Witch of Lancre. There are probably others I’m missing, plus others with character’s you might not see again—though many characters get cameo appearances elsewhere. Wow, this has become a rave about how good Discworld, and by extension Terry Pratchett, is.

The one concern I have with his writing is that some of his older stuff does feel dated. Now I don’t know how valid of a concern this is. I seriously doubt anyone ever picked up Romeo and Juliet, Gulliver’s Travels, or even something relatively more recent like The Picture of Dorian Grey and was ever in doubt that this was an old book. But I can read The Hobbit and that still seems fresh and new to me, published some 85 years ago. And Discworld’s humor depends on being fresh as much as funny. If it reads old it’s not as funny, and it makes me wonder if the book will stand the test of time. Now, I think this improved around 86 or 87, which I think is when he made the jump to writing full-time judging by his bibliography. I think one of the bios in a book from around that time mentioned that he was losing money by going to work or something like that. Make no mistake, timeless or not the man is a bestseller and will be until he can’t function anymore. His production has slowed down the past few years since his diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimers, which means instead of publishing two books a year he’s down to just one. Can I just mention that the two years of my mission were bad to you if you were one of my favorite living authors? Not only Pratchett’s aforementioned diagnosis, but Robert Jordan died as well.

Getting back to Strata, the book, published in 1981, reads like it’s from the 70s. Talk about feeling dated. And maybe that’s the problem too. It just feels old. But I also get the feeling the Pratchett hadn’t quite mastered his craft yet. He hadn’t captured the humor or the feel that would characterize his writing yet.

The short version of the story is: I’m struggling enough with this book to make non-fiction look good.

DBZ

2012-06-17T15:14:00.000-06:00

DragonballZ has the best dialogue. Where else would you hear this?

“I am the Hope of the Universe. I am the answer to all living things that cry out for Peace. I am Protector of the Innocent. I am the Light in the Darkness. I am Truth. Allied to good! Nightmare to you!”

Stuff like this aligned with great coloring and animation? A pure delight.

The Word Cloud

2012-05-19T23:49:00.001-06:00

So, I'm somewhat technologically challenged. When the Wizzard did this he could save the images from wordle. When I tried I couldn't find a way to get a usable image out of it. So, I may have gone a little crazy about it . . . and these are all just links to see what I've done. Images would have been much easier of course.

This is the wordle of my blog.

This is the wordle of a story I started writing. A little concept I got that is kinda similar to Ender's Game. I suspect it came from a dream.

 
This comes from the story I wrote for the a.m. kindergarten I was working with. The Gooey Monster. one of the better, and more complete stories I've ever done.

 
This is another concept story I was working on, probably from another dream. Incomplete as always, since I'm not sure where to take it. For some reason I decided to tie it in with my old elementary school comic projects, so the document is titled The Incredible Return of the Legendary Power Figures.

 
This last one is from another concept story I started, a YA mystery novel. Again its very incomplete, mostly because I don't know where to go with it.

 
And that's all folks. I might do some more later, since some of my more complete storied aren't on here, specifically The Mountains of Mist, this story I wrote for some fifth grade girls a year and a half or so ago, and a dragon story.

I guess I did this to motivate myself to write more, so let's hope it works.

Ghostbusters

2012-05-17T12:00:00.000-06:00

Ghostbusters might be one of the finest movies ever made. Does anyone not like that movie? That said, I don’t think I’ve seen that movie much since I was a kid. So having watched it just last week, I’ve gotta say, that movie has a lot of stuff I definitely did not catch as a kid. It’s one of those movies thats great because it’s good for kids and adults.

In another of my Wikipedia sessions I was looking up Ghostbusters. Did you know that there was another Ghostbusters cartoon in the 90s? I knew before about the old 80s one, The Real Ghostbusters, but I was totally in the dark about Extreme Ghostbusters, and I grew up watching cartoons in the 90s. Of course, growing up I never had cable, which is a probably a good thing considering how much TV I watch now, and I have no idea what channel it would have been on. Neither show is considered canon, though, if I remember correctly my favorite Spider-man Author J. Michael Straczynski (hate spelling that) was very involved in the 80s series, if only for a short time.

It seems in recent years I’ve seen the sequel much more often than the superior original, but with that said, it’s still a good movie. I haven’t seen it as recently as the other, so I can’t comment much on it. I am anticipating someday watching the two cartoon series. Oh, and I guess the chances of ever seeing a third movie is nill, since Bill Murray seemingly refuses point blank to even consider the possibility, though the rest of the cast seems to hyped to do it. If you want the third movie, apparently the game released in 2009 essentially functions as it.

Heroes

2012-05-16T12:00:00.000-06:00

I’ve been spending more time than is healthy lately watching Heroes. Basically that show is a comic book on TV, which I find absurdly appropriate. Essentially both comic books and TV are amazing mixes of visual and literary arts. While I highly enjoy the storytelling styles of both TV and comics, I have to say, the comic book style is probably harder to get used to. A lot of comic book authors like to run multiple storylines at once, which is hard for a lot of TV audiences to adjust to I think, and is a technique I felt worked well with Heroes.

Another thing comic books tend to do, which I don’t think Heroes did particularly well, is show a scene, and then come back later to extend it to explain what happened or for whatever other reason. When Heroes did this, they tended to end an episode on a scene, and then begin the next episode on the same on, sometimes not bothering to make any changes or add anything. Perhaps that worked well when the series was coming on with a new episode each week, but watching over again, on Netflix or DVD it’s just annoying. All in all I liked the series, though I felt the Company was overdone a bit—this is perhaps the sentinels bit if you’re into X-Men comparisons. They also came to the Brotherhood of Mutants thing a little late, as they didn’t really explore that potential bit of the show until the fourth season, when interest in the show was starting to die down. That said, having watched them all again recently, I actually think season four had some of the most compelling storytelling the show managed, at least until it was cancelled and had to wrap things up quickly.

All things together, I would love to see this series continued in a comic book format, as Joss Whedon does with many of his projects. If they got a good artist and writer team, I bet they’d get a good following for it.

The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde

2012-05-15T16:17:00.001-06:00

One night I was up reading on Wikipedia, as I am wont to do occasionally, about the Faustian legend. Now, how I came to be doing this, or why escapes me at the present time, perhaps I’d been listening to that Police song and as wondering who exactly Mephistopheles was, perhaps something else prompted this subject matter, but regardless I ended up perusing a list of works with Faustian elements—a long list to be sure, including operas, movies, books, and other things. The only thing that really jumped out at me was The Picture of Dorian Grey. The basic idea behind the Faust Legend, for those who may not know, is selling your soul to the devil for something. You can see why the list is so long.

My only previous experience with Dorian Grey comes from that excellent Sean Connery film, his last I believe, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Dorian Grey in that work is a little different than in the original. While in both he has his portrait age instead of himself, the effects somewhat differ. In the movie he covered the portrait because if he ever saw it, his age would return to himself, which is how he died in the movie. In the book, not only does the portrait age, it also bears his sins. When he kills the artist who painted it, for example, in the portrait his hands drip with blood. Also in the novel, Dorian is free to look at the picture as he pleases, and he does. In fact, the way he dies he in the book is when he decides to destroy the picture, plunging a knife into it.

While I somewhat infrequently read the classics, this particular book well, it was short, but not enjoyable enough for me to read quickly. I kinda trudged through it the best I could. That’s not to say the story wasn’t good, or it wasn’t well written. It was actually quite good. I simply struggle adjusting to that older style of language. And it’s not like Dorian Grey is even that old—about a hundred and twenty years. If I struggle with that, it goes without saying I struggle a bit with even older works.

Quest for Camelot

2012-05-02T17:41:00.002-06:00

Sometimes, perhaps a lot of the time, I’ll watch a movie solely for the music. A lot of my favorite movies are like this. The Goofy Movie, The Country Bears, and Quest for Camelot are examples that come to mind. I’m sure there are others. While all these movies have great music, and I like them, some leave more to be desired than others.

The Country Bears, once I finally acquired the soundtrack, I never felt the urge to watch again. The music truly was the one and only reason I would watch. The other two aforementioned movies are another story entirely however. It is Quest for Camelot that I wish to address at this time. (I feel like my voice here has been affected, and not for the best, by the fact that I have been watching the Granada Sherlock Homes TV series—1984 starring Jeremy Brett. Just FYI)

Quest for Camelot is the only one of those movies that I do not possess the soundtrack of. This is strange because from the very beginning my interest in the movie has been wholly musical. That is to say, I wanted to see the movie because I found out Steve Perry sang for it. Steve Perry again, huh? He is, to those who don’t know, the singer for Journey that made them famous when they decided to stop being some sort of 70s prog fusion band or something. He’s great.

Anyway, I may have mentioned this before, but I love several of the tracks from this album enough to listen to them over and over again. “United We Stand” is one of them. Credited to Perry, this song is the main reason I love the album. I really do listen to this song over and over when I check the CD out from the library. This song is the one played during the title sequence, when Kaylee’s father is going to Camelot to sit at the Round Table. While I love Perry, his part singing as King Arthur, is far from the best. The song simply isn’t tailored to show off his voice. Instead the song is dominated by an awesome faux Irish Hornpipe part on a string arrangement and a repeated male chorus part. Also unfortunately, as much as I love Perry’s version of “I Stand Alone,” Bryan White’s version is better. White’s is used for Gareth in the film, while Perry’s is regulated to the credit sequence at the end.

The Name of the Wind

2012-04-27T16:17:00.000-06:00

So, if you’re a total sci-fi/fantasy nerd like I am, and let’s face it, if you’re on here either that’s true or you’re one of the five people that actually sees my facebook posts (okay, based on traffic that’s not true. There might be twelve of you), then you’ve probably been hearing a lot about The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss for a few years now. Actually, you’ve probably already read it. If you haven’t read it yet, you should.

One of the last things I learned about in my Classroom Literacy Instruction class this semester is the difference between aesthetic and efferent reading. One is fun and the other isn’t. Okay, the difference might be more subtle than that, but that’s essentially what it boils down to. Reading a text book is for the most part efferent reading. It’s not terribly fun—though some textbooks are done well enough that for me they cross that line and become aesthetic—and it’s mostly a functional process. I’m reading this because I’m looking for some information. Aesthetic reading means the words, phrases, and sentences just have a sublime beauty that helps them float off the page. Waiting for the Barbarians is a good example of this. J.M. Coetze’s writing is incredible. It would help if his beautiful sentences made up a better story though.

That’s what I thought of when I first started reading The Name of the Wind. Rothfuss’ writing is simply sublime. He has a way of crafting his sentences that is just beautiful. And the story just rocks too. The short version is: after having finally picked up his book, likely after an Unshelved Book Club recommendation, I’m glad I did. And I’m really looking forward to Wise Man’s Fear.

BLOG20120419

2012-04-19T23:22:00.000-06:00

So, I’m staying up, listening to an extended mix of Higher Love, and I realize, as long as I’m up I might as well blog. Especially since I clearly have no intention of doing my homework at the moment. So, here I go on to my favorite topic: Me pretending I’m talking about things that are not me.

So most of my dedicated readers will probably be familiar with Rick Riordan, and if you aren’t, I have no idea why you’d ever read anything I write. Because I love Rick Riordan. Okay, maybe love is the wrong word. Did I mention in my last post that I’d stumbled on his debut novel at the library a few weeks ago? Well I did. Stumble on the book I did. Maybe not literally. I’ll explain myself. Eventually. Once I’m done rambling.

The way my incredibly boring story goes is I was looking in the mystery section for the second Kathy Reichs novel. And of course nearby is Rick Riordans section of mystery novels. You know—the books he wrote and published before becoming a very successful YA fantasy novel author. Those are great too. I mean, Percy Jackson is great. I loved The Lost Hero too. But here’s a confession for ya: I have read none of the Kane chronicles, and have yet to pick up The Son of Neptune. I’ve been busy (Also, I have somehow neglected to blog about Chris D’Lacey). Anyway, by sheer luck I managed to pick up his first novel on my first try. And it’s good. So is his third (the library doesn’t have his second so I had to skip). Rick Riordan is a rare kind of author my imaginary friends.

Now for sharing time. Just because I can. The second grade class I’ve been with (and will miss. Last day today) has been working on limericks. Theirs are better than mine, but here a few of my attempts.

This is a limerick about dirt.

It’s so boring it makes me hurt.

If I should laugh,

Or get sawn in half,

At least I don’t live in a yurt.

After Hulk Smash

Joker takes out the trash.

BANG!! POW!!

BOOM!! OW!!

Don’t do anything rash.

A boy who liked to read

Was consumed with endless greed.

He sat on the sofa,

Ate at Formosa,

And satisfied his need.

What Has Harso Been Up To?

2012-04-07T22:58:00.000-06:00

Well, it’s kinda hard for me to believe that it’s been so long since I’ve done a post on here. After all, I’ve been reading tons, listening to music, watching TV. But I’ve also been busy. School, and practicum keep me busy, and all my free time has gone to those aforementioned activities that apparently I live for. Of course, the truth is, I think that stuff keeps me sane. But I have meant to write my thoughts on a few things I’ve read recently. I actually have a list written down somewhere. But first the ones on top of my head. So, here we go.

The Night Circus

This book really, really impressed me. It was fascinating. The writing style was really and truly unique to anything else I have read ever I think. Everything was written in the present tense, which I found to be an interesting device. Also, it was probably the most complex story I’ve read since The Way of Kings. Not as complex as The Wheel of Time, which is definitely the most complex storytelling I’ve ever encountered. Neither was it as complex as War and Peace. At least, I don’t think so. But all told, an excellent piece of work.

Deja Dead

I recently started following Kathy Reichs on twitter, and that’s almost certainly what inspired me to read her debut novel. I love Bones, the TV show that is rather loosely based on her novels, which as far as I can tell are based loosely on Reichs’s own life—after all she is one of the premiere forensic anthropologists in the country. Again, the writing here is quite different from what I’m used to, and through it I can see why Brennan’s character is portrayed the way it is on the show. Though it could also be that I’m reading outside of my core genres of fantasy/science fiction here. That said, I’m inclined to go with it being Reichs strong writing voice coming out.

The rest of these it’s been awhile since I’ve read, so hold on. I also read Dr. Seuss & Mr. Giessel recently, which as you might guess, was a biography of Dr. Seuss. It was quite fascinating. I liked it enough that I’ve now picked up a biography of Walt Disney. We’ll see how that goes. Okay, now we’re really moving on.

Richard Castles Deadly Storm

Have I mentioned that I like Castle? The TV show about the writer who gets to hang out with the NYPD homicide detectives? Well, I do. So, about a month or so ago I guess while I was browsing the Graphic Novel Section as I’m occasionally prone to do, this caught my eye. When I saw that it was written in part by Brian Michael Bendis I just knew that I had to pick it up. I had no more choice in the matter. It was game over. It was good though. I still have some questions though. What really happened to Clara Strike? This is supposed to be castles first Derrick Storm novel, and I know she’s supposed to be in the next ones as well. I guess I can only hope for further additions.

Ultimate Spiderman Vol. 5

I know I already mentioned Bendis, but here he comes again. Actually this particular volume, which is a reference to the big hardcover editions, not the littler compilations is mostly noteworthy because I’m pretty sure I pretty big chunk of it was actually from The Ultimates. But this was okay, if only because it filled in some pretty big gaps in the Ultimate Spiderman storyline. Okay, they never really bugged me before, but since it was also a Spiderman adventure it really made sense and fit well here.

Battle for the Cowl

Switching comic book publishers, I really remember little of this comic now, except for that I’m pretty sure this fits very well into the Batman arc I had read previously. Yes, that’s right, this is the part that explains what’s going on in Gotham after Bruce is sent back into the past after killing Darkseid. Yeah. This seemed kinda dark actually—though since this is Batman that might go without saying. The anthology ends as I recall with Vicki Vales lightbulb going off. Bruce Wayne is Batman, which leads nicely into some of the previous Batman works I’ve mentioned.

War Games

This is one of my favorite movies. I watched it a while ago. That is all I really have to say

Firefly

I got the urge to rewatch this again, so I did. When I was home last weekend I asked if I could borrow this, so naturally I spent the first couple days of this week watching the whole thing over again. I’m just amazed by this show. This show did things in just fifteen episodes that other shows take over five seasons to get too. That is the sign of something truly special. Of course, the show was created by Joss Whedon, and had Ben Edlund working on several episodes as well. How can you go wrong with that?

Heroes Vols. 1&2

Honestly when I saw these graphic novels on the shelf at the library, I thought for sure they’d just be the TV series in a graphic novel format. I was wrong. These were actually put on their website during the series as a supplement to the show. And they weren’t bad either. Though I found Vol. 1 to be superior to Vol. 2, mostly because of the Hana Gitelman story arc.

So, that there is about all I wanted to talk about. At least, as far as I can remember. Not only that, but I only talked about the books, very little about discovering them, or strange asides about nothing at all. Possibly coming soon: Rick Riordan’s, of Percy Jackson fame, first novel. A mystery work called Big Red Tequila.

And I really thought I was done, but I thought I’d give some more explanation as to why I haven’t been posting much the last month or so. My efforts have mostly been directed towards filling out an application for the National Guard, and more recently for a crazy internship for next year. That’s all! And yes, they both were rather intensive applications, the National Guard more so than the other. Finishing them both has actually left me rather directionless this week.