want ya'll to meet sumbody.

This here's my KiKat, my Tiger, she who doth feed me the McDonald's and deflect most of my BS:

emeraldkitty!!

Be nice to her, or, if possible, I will track you down and reduce the number of working teeth in yer heads....lol!

(hugs emeraldkitty--Meow!)

(scots brogue) Ya great pouf!

For all my talk of maiming and destruction, I still get teary-eyed when I haven't had a chance to put my armor on, and encounter a disney film, or something else full of sappy sentiment or great beauty.

for those who cannot take the text of Tolkein

I have heard, through my channels of humanity, those who would complain of the language in The Lord of the Rings, its stiffness, dryness, etc. To this I respond only with facts that should make plain the cause for your pains, readers.

Tolkein were a member of RAF, if I remember correctly, for the first part. Back in the era of World War I. A British military man--imagine the precision, the hellish stiffness of the officer class.

And then add to this the fact that our epic-dealing author was an English professor, at Oxford, in the forties to the late fifties--imagine the prim and proper of that, hell, just being English back then would be enough to chill the writings of anyone you know. And then add to this the fact that he was a professor at a world-reknowned college, in England, back then, and he taught English, language and literature.

In reading bios of the man, I am amazed, in awe, of the fact that the man ever wrote anything at all, especially in the veins of epic fantasy, requiring a rich imagination at the very least. From what we Yanks perceive the English to be, I am perfectly astounded by his craft.

To those who cannot manage the book--congratulations, says the asshole part of my mind. You couldn't read a book. Go get a little badge to wear.

The nice guy part of my mind would love to remind you that the Rings books are so an integral part of the English-speaking culture that, even without seeing any of the films, or reading any of the books, you can glom the plot and events merely by watching enough episodes of Saturday morning cartoons.

You know, when Scooby and his pals run out of fresh ideas, and one week, you wind up watching the Wizard of Oz, with Scooby as Dorothy and Shaggy as the Scarecrow? The formulas come out of the woodwork, and if one be clever, one can catch all the greats, without ever having to flick the remote.

For those of you who couldn't slog through the books, thanks for letting us know. Me, I still haven't managed to get through the first quarter of 1984--in ten years of repeated attempts. The writing is as dystopic as the subject, in my eyes.

That's the problem with classics though, innit? To qualify, they are usually pretty fucking old, and the language too far from our comfortable idioms to relax us. It's like Shakespeare, but without all the forsooths that tickle our minds.

(one shouldn't post when one is emotionally rollercoastering, one thinks)

I've been sitting here tearing up at the beauty of the characters, the concepts, and the sheer fact that something from my childhood has been rendered multimedia, as if Star Wars were a book, just now hitting film.