Friday, February 4, 2005
If you are not a fan of Tolkien, you may as well leave now - go back and read my diatribe against Winter or something. Otherwise...
One of the things that I've always found really cool about Tolkien is that even the most obscure reference in The Lord of the Rings has some basis in his reality, whether it's an offhand mention of Mount Meneltarma or a reference to the fall of Gondolin. But there were a couple of instances that Tolkien himself was known to say had no real reference - the names of the other two of the five wizards and Queen Beruthiel and her cats. While I am far from having all of the companion volumes that Christopher Tolkien has assembled the last 25 years, I was flipping through Unfinished Tales for the first time in a while yesterday and came across this footnote:
"Even the story of Queen Beruthiel does exist, however, if only in a very 'primitive' outline, in one part illegible. She was the nefarious, solitary, and loveless wife of Tarannon, twelfth King of Gondor (Third Age 830-913) and first of the 'Ship Kings', who took the crown in the name of Falastur 'Lord of the Coasts', and was the first childless king. Beruthiel lived in the King's House in Osgiliath, hating the sounds and smells of the sea and the house that Tarannon built below Pelargir 'upon arches whose feet stood deep inthe wide waters of Ethir Anduin'; she hated all making, all colours and elaborate adornment, wearing only black and silver and living in bare chambers, and the gardens of the house in Osgiliath were filled with tormented sculptures beneath cypresses and yews. She had nine black cats and one white, her slaves, with whom she conversed, or read their memories, setting them to discover all the dark secrets of Gondor..."
There you have it, folks - the first Goth chick.
Posted by Tony @ 9:40:00 pm |
Thursday, February 3, 2005
Alright, I'm getting a little tired of this pansy-ass approach to the season so far. Sure, the first week of January rocked with those way warmer than normal temps, but I had a cold and couldn't enjoy it. Now we're halfway through and you still don't seem to be able to make up your mind whether you're going to be one of those mild winters where we get to go out and hike and prune trees and stuff or a real manly winter with real snow that'll give us an excuse to stay in and build a fire and drink or go outside and build snow penises people and laugh at the dog trying to walk through tummy-high drifts. And
drink. Noooooo, instead we get this wishy-washy little bit of ice with a little cold rain on top and colder than average temperatures but not TOO cold. What a wuss! And don't come back with one of those late March snowstorms 'cause by then, you know, it'll just be too late. So I either want to see a foot of snow outside my house Tuesday morning (after I've stocked up on milk and bread beer and chips) or I want to see some clear skies and 55 degree weather so I can run in shorts. Consider this a challenge.
Posted by Tony @ 7:45:00 pm |
Monday, January 31, 2005
Tell me my calendar is wrong and we're not already a 12th of the way through 2005!?!? Un-freaking-believable. I'm not one to suffer from post-holiday depression - my Carolina basketball obsession takes care of that just fine. I'm actually a fan of January and February as I can concentrate fully on the Heels since there's nothing else going on and if that's not enough, pro football is actually moderately interesting (usually) during the playoffs. I'm not one that immediately after New Year's Day starts hollering for spring. So I don't know where in the hell the month has gone. I've certainly been working a lot - not the 60+ hour weeks of December but 50 or so for sure, at least 5 or 6 of which are usually on Saturday or Sunday. That might explain at least part of the time compression. But with the threat of weather keeping us indoors for much of the last two weekends, I would have expected things to drag a bit.
We did get out long enough last Saturday for me to get over to Staples and score a CD bookcase on clearance for $15 that's actually big enough to hold all of my CDs (they've been scattered in 4 or 5 much smaller towers, stackers, stacks, etc.). Don't think that I'm talking about scads of CDs - I've never bought them in the quantities I used to buy vinyl (I had my parents' money back
then - I was a student). But I did find a few that I had no idea that I actually owned, so that was a nice bonus.
I also picked up this year's TurboTax and I swear to the gods that I'm
going to actually remember to do all that rebate shit that makes it all almost
free if you do it all correctly rather than the umpty-leven dollars it costs
if you don't. Looks like next weekend is tax return weekend.
Since we decided to get out before the ice storm (that didn't really amount to much) Saturday, I had to listen to the UNC-Virginia game rather than watch it. Just as well, as it was quite a blowout. I suspected that after the loss to Wake and subpar performances against Clemson and Miami, the next opponent was going to get both barrels and sure enough. The next four games should be more of a test, with NCState at our place before going on the road for Florida State, Dook and Connecticut. Okay, so I know Florida State isn't even the best ACC basketball team in the Sandbar State this year - they're still always tough at home against us. And I know Sendak's team is kinda stinky lately - you know they'd love to come to our house and pull one out. So it'll be a tough couple of weeks - just the way we like 'em!
JennySlash has posted an interesting find - something we both thought long gone out of business...
