Mirror of Erised

I am rereading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, or more accurately Jim Dale is reading it to me.  Harry has just spent three nights visiting the Mirror of Erised.  This magic mirror shows a person his greatest desire instead of his reflection.  When Harry looks into it, he sees himself surrounded by his family.  Ron, who is overshadowed by his brothers, is named head boy and wins the Quidditch Cup and the House Cup when he looks into the mirror.  While listening to this story, I started wondering what I would see in the Mirror of Erised.

I do not think my vision would be like Ron’s.  I have never sought fame or glory and never had high aspirations.  Sure I still love the idea of being a professional athlete.  But at age 37, I am satisfied to reach the Hall of Fame playing MLB 09 The Show.  I do not care anything about money, and I already make more than I can spend, so I am sure that I would not be surrounded by piles of money.   Though I do like the idea of an early retirement.

I think that my vision would be similar to Harry’s.  I have been very blessed to be surrounded for most of my life by a large family.  Occasionally too much, but usually not often enough.  While he sees the past generations of his family, I would see future generations.  Two or three sharp nosed, squinty eyed kids would be there in the mirror with me.  Unfortunately much like Harry’s vision, mine is also an impossible sight.  For me to have children, I would need to have a wife first.  There is no chance of that happening.  While I am not opposed to having a wife, I have absolutely no desire to date.  Obviously the best order to do these things is dating, then marriage, and then children.  Right now I do not see the prize at the end of that rainbow as being worth going through the steps to get there.  So those children will be staying in the mirror.

Like Harry, I realize that this is a very personal question.  So feel free to answer, “wool socks.”  What do you see in the Mirror of Erised?

I am still alive (in case you were worried)

Well it turns out that all of my creativity is stored in my red blood cells.  I have not been inspired to write since I gave blood eleven days ago.  If I had my blog to live over again, I would have written about the NBA dunk contest.  Serge Ibaka was robbed on his free throw line dunk.  The whole thing was rigged in an attempt to make Blake Griffin the next big star.  I also would have mentioned that Kevin Durant at 33% did not belong in the 3 point contest.  Unfortunately it did not cross my mind to write about it until a yesterday, so this summary is all you get.

I just watched Dollhouse season one that I got for Christmas.  It was much better the second time around.  I knew everything that was happening, so I was able to just sit back and enjoy all the Whedonness of it.  Now I am in a mood to watch some more Joss.  Since Mac is unable to appreciate greatness, he still has, unwatched, my copy of the Buffy high school years.  I plan to skip ahead and watch Angel instead, but first I need renew my spring training tradition of watching Ken Burns Baseball aka the best movie ever made.

I hope to be inspired to write by the retreat that I am going on with my church this weekend.  Though I do not have high hopes.  I hear that the speaker is lame.  But when that is over, I get to see my Moma and then watch the Oscars.  So if nothing else, I will write about my girl winning best actress.

Take That Sucka

Today's Scrabble word of the day is RAILINGS.  I know what you are asking yourself, "Is Shane so out of blog ideas that he has had to resort to blogging about Words with Friends?". The answer obviously is yes.  If my camera and my Scrabble board were not the same piece of technology, I would have included a picture of the game board.  Instead you will just have to take my word for it.  The tiles that made the word RAILINGS only add up to 12, unimpressive to say the least.  However the L is on the triple letter.  Which makes my score 16.  The S is on the double word, making my score 32.  The R is a triple word.  96 points plus the 35 point bonus for using all 7 tiles brings us to a grand total of 131.  I apologize for not having anything more interesting about which to write.

Ouch

At 2:58 on February 1, I was awaken from a sound sleep by a phone call from the Red Cross.  I am a big fan of giving blood.  Other than the timing of the call, I was glad that my sixteen weeks had passed and that it was time once again to have my blood sucked out of me.  Due to the physical nature of my job, I always schedule my donations for the weekend.  So while half asleep, I set up an appointment for the following Saturday morning.  A day or two later, I was reading the church bulletin and found out that there would be a blood drive at the church building on February 13.  This date would be more convenient for me, so I berated myself for not reading the bulletin when I got it back on January 30.  I considered calling the Red Cross back and canceling my appointment but never got around to it.  There was some snow on Friday the 4th which canceled my other Saturday morning plans.  So I used that as an excuse not to donate that day.

This morning I went to church and then walk over to The Dixie Cafe afterward.  I put enough food in my belly that there was no chance of passing out from blood lose and walked back over to church.  After answering several questions about my sexual and medical history, I was hooked up to ALYX.  You should take a break from reading this post and read that last link about double red cell donations, otherwise the next sentence will not make sense to you.

After she had donated, Lacey kept me company while my blood was being drawn out and pumped back into me.  The process seemed to take a little longer than usual, maybe because all my blood wanted to stay and help digest that chicken fried steak instead of going into a bag where there was no chicken fried steaks.  After I was unhooked from the machine, I went home with a new t shirt and nary a side effect from the blood lose.  That is until nine hours later when the band aid came off along with some skin.

The Further Adventures of Flat Stanley

I am sure that you have already read over at the opinion about my time with Aunt Ellen.  I traveled with her and Jess to Uncle Shane's house to rescue Betty from the snow and mud that had imprisoned her in the front yard.  The task proved to be more difficult than the four of us could overcome, but thankfully the Levy community rallied around us and freed Betty from the remains of Uncle Shane's yard.

That tall, flat, mud stained gentleman behind her is one of her heroes from yesterday.  I wonder if we are related.

I said my goodbyes to Jess and Ellen and readied myself for my next adventure.  Uncle Shane was no longer trapped at home without transportation and was now free to go anywhere and do anything.  So we went inside to play video games.  We played Star Wars the Force Unleashed.

It was difficult, but our combined skills were enough to bring a star destroyer crashing to the ground.  Who knew the force was so strong in us?  We had four sore thumbs after that game.

We ate supper then settled in for some OVC basketball action.

Tennessee Tech traveled to Murray for a battle between the two highest scoring teams in the conference.  So naturally it was a low scoring defensive battle.  The Racers cut down on turnovers in the second half and rolled to a 55-44 victory.  After the game we drank some coffee before Uncle Shane had to go to work.

Notice that I am drinking out of a Blue Like Jazz mug.  A gift from FUDM.

I wanted to go to work with Uncle Shane, but it was past my bedtime.  I got to sleep in the Spider-Man bed.

However, because of the coffee that I just drank, I was unable to sleep.  So I got up and played some Rock Band.

I played some flawless guitar and then sang some Monicas.  After that I was tired enough to go to sleep.

Uncle Shane woke me when he got home, and we had some breakfast.

Then we played some Webkinz with Daniel.

After Uncle Shane went to bed, I entertained myself by watching tv and reading comic books.

Then I wrote this blog.

The First Shall Be Last

Congratulations to the Green Bay Packers for winning Super Bowl XLV.  It was appropriate that the team that one the first Super Bowl also won the last one.  XLV will be the last Super Bowl because there will be either a lockout or a strike next season.  Super Bowl MVP Aaron Rodgers not only led the Packers to the Super Bowl title, he also led the Neptune Pirates to the championship of the Chicken Wing League (sorry for the fantasy football reference Mac).

The Brett Favre #4 is the only Packer jersey that I own.  I have not worn it much, if any, during the last three seasons while he has been playing for the Jets and Vikings.  Favre has already retired this season and set another NFL record.  He broke the record for consecutive seasons with a retirement set back in the 70’s by Wishy McWashson.  Since he is retired and not a Viking, I wore his jersey during the NFC Championship game at Chicago.  After that win I decided that I needed a new jersey to wear during the Super Bowl.

I debated the pros and cons of the current Packers and decided that I would probably get a Tramon Williams jersey.  As usually the gap between my intentions and my actions was too wide for Evel Knievel to jump.  So by the time that I finally got on line to shop, his jersey had sold out.  I considered picking another player, but chose to wait until next season, if there is a next season, to get a new jersey.  So I was forced to wear the Favre yet again tonight.  But on the bright side, I got to wear a giant piece of cheese on my head.

I would go into detail about the game, but you saw the game or do not care about football.  There was a big lead, then a near comeback, then Artie got slushied.  The singing at the game was bad, but I blame Jerry Jones for that.  There was creamy tacos and apple dumplings.  Now if only the Cubs could win the World Series.

On Death and Dying

EDITORS NOTE: This blog contains spoilers for Fantastic Four 587 and BtVS 39.

Fantastic Four 415 was the first of that title in my collection.  I bought it back in 1996 shortly before the whole team died.  But as often happens in comic books, the team was resurrected.  I have been buying Fantastic Four ever since and have extended my collection back to issue 130 with several others older than that.  Needless to say, I am a big fan.  So I was disappointed when I heard that Jonathan Hickman was planning to kill one of the Four.  When Marvel made the announcement, I predicted that it was Johnny's turn to die.  So I was not surprised when at the end of issue 587 the Torch was trapped in the Negative Zone by himself facing an Annihilation Wave.  You do not actually see the dead body, so it will be easy from him to be brought back from supposed death some time in the future.  The last of the Four to die was Ben (Fantastic Four 510).  The other three traveled to Heaven to bring him back to Earth.  God (who looked more like Jack Kirby than Alanis Morissette)offered to let the whole team stay, but they chose to return to Earth.  It was a stupid story, but I am glad that he is alive again.

There have been some great death scenes in comic books, though I usually prefer the following issue when the survivors are grieving the loss of their friend.  The silent issue following Odin's death (Thor 546), Katya taking Piotr's ashes back to Russia (X-Men 110), the team coping as best they can after Jamie died (X-Factor 101), and Jubilee breaking down after Illyana's death (Uncanny 303) are just a few.  Hopefully the next issue of F4 will be a memorable one.

I was having some trouble writing this blog last night.  Some times when I have too many thoughts on a subject they get clogged up in the funnel of my mind fighting to be the first one out.  So I sit there deleting sentence after sentence until I can finally put an entire thought together.  I eventually gave this eulogy up as a bad job and decided to read some comics instead of writing about them.  I had enough time before work to read the last two issues of Buffy Season 8.  There I witnessed the death of my friend Rupert Giles.

The contrast between these deaths says lots about the publishers/storytellers.  Marvel has been advertising for months that a character would die.  Human Torch's death took up a two page splash.  Whedon/Dark Horse killed Giles with no warning like he did with Tara, Wash, and Joyce.  Marvel left the door wide open for Johnny's return.  Giles is no longer here to take that call.

Shane wuz here

If you can not read this, it says, “God created the Heavens and the Earth, not no Damn explosion.“  This is written inside of one of the trailers that I load at work.  Now I have no problem with work place graffiti.  At Garan back in the day, you could hardly walk five feet without seeing Shane or Bruce Lane #23 written on something.  I may have even tagged Polivick once.  My problems are with the message being sent.

First, when you are making an argument on God’s behalf, do not cuss.  You always lose credibility in a discussion when you can not articulate your thoughts without resorting to cussing.  Unless of course it is some kind of “Yo Moma” contest.  Also cussing in the name of God is not going to help your argument.  I am not saying the people who believe in creation do not cuss.  This however is not the appropriate time for it.

Second, when making any argument you should always use good grammar.  Using bad grammar makes you sound ignorant.  A double negative is proof positive that you are an idiot.  People will ignore your message if  you can not deliver it intelligently.

Third, I do not agree with the message either.  The Genesis account of creation has very little detail.  The entire universe is created in forty-five sentences with some of those sentences being repeats.  “And it was so,” six times.  “And God saw that it was good,” five times.  In comparison, this blog is twenty-eight sentences long.  There is much less happening in this blog than in the creation.  Genesis does not explain how the universe was made, but only who made it.  God spoke the universe into being.  That sounds like a pretty big bang to me.  I do not understand why creationist are so quick to dismiss science.  God created science just like everything else.

Don't count your swans before they hatch.

I had not been to the movies since May.  That is not to say that I have not seen any movies.  Thanks to DVD’s and cable, I have seen more than my share.  When the academy announced their nominees, I realized that I actually had not seen enough movies.  Hollywood has conspired to keep their best movies in the theaters until Oscar time.  They think that they can trick us into going to see the movies instead of waiting until the DVD.  This time their scheme worked.  I checked the showtimes, then had to decide if I wanted to drive 20, 25, or 30 minutes to get to the theater.  I was dreading going all the way over to west Little Rock and once again lamenting the fact that North Rock does not have a theater.  I say there is no theater in NLR because I swore off Lakewood around a decade ago.  My desire to spend less time in the car overcame my desire for a modern theater.  So I headed over to Lakewood for the 2:00 show.

My next choice was which movie to see.  My choices were True Grit and Black Swan.  I am a big fan of the Coen brothers, but Natalie Portman is the future mother of my children.  I will pick her over the Coens every day of the week.  I bought my ticket and purchased a late lunch of Pibb and popcorn.  When I walked into my theater, it was completely empty.  I was so overjoyed at the thought of watching the movie alone, that I did not even care that there was a center aisle that prevents me from sitting in the center of the room.  I chose a seat and started inhaling the popcorn while waiting for the movie to start.  When 2:00 rolled around, Natalie and I still had the room to ourselves.

I am not going to spoil the movie for you, but my girl rocked.  I just looked at the list of past Best Actress winners, and she blew them all away.  There is no way that she does not win the Oscar.  I am now debating whether or not to see True Grit.  If I do not see it, I can cheer for Black Swan in all categories with a clean conscience.