two.points.collapsing

hey, it’s christmas day!

now, i wouldn’t say my only interest in christmas is the material side. i was thinking a few days ago, there’s nothing i feel greedily about, as in “i sure hope i get this, or that.” really i was just hoping to have a nice time. but i have to say, it’s kind of cool to look at my little pile of new dvd’s and other booty and be glad that my family is so generous to me. new stuff is cool even if you weren’t aching for it in the first place.

however, there are other cool things too, like not sitting at a computer on christmas, and reading books, and most importantly and immediately–homemade pie. so i hope your day was joyous and such; mine was quite nice, thank you.

it’s christmas eve, and a thorough search of tv guide turned up no sings of how the grinch stole christmas this evening. i ask you, what has become of this world. jimmy stewart will have to provide all the christmas magic on his own. if i were a girl, i’d be in love with him too.

i really love reading this, even though i talk to her all the time. i don’t know quite what it is. she’s clever and funny written just like in person, i guess.

i was very pleased to see over at slatch, on the winter mix, two bands i really love getting some appreciation. it seems to me that neither the stereo nor the flaming lips get much ink from anyone in indie rock land, and i always wonder about that but figure it’s just my problem. maybe i was wrong.

back to christmas now…there is no snow anywhere in houston, in case you were wondering. it’s not really a matter of whether or not we’ll have a white christmas here. it’s more a concern of whether or not it’ll be cold enough to even need the furnace or wear a long sleeved shirt. i’m off to illinois thursday morning though, so maybe i’ll get a nice dose of cold to make me appreciate living in southern california through the harsh months of january and february.

i think i might run over to the bookstore today because i have nothing else to do and i’m reading my last unread book; and i like to always have one or two on deck (i.e. sitting on my bookshelf), staring at me, pushing me to keep reading. i’ve also got christmas cookies i should be eating so merry christmas everyone, and to all a good night. see you tomorrow.

now that i’ve finished reading oscar wilde, i’ve moved onto a book called atheism: the case against god by george h. smith. i’ve known for years i don’t believe in anything “up there”, but i never actually read a book about it, and it seemed like a good idea.

i’m only about 30 pages in so far so i can’t really say much, but it starts off pretty well i think by talking about the “burden of proof”. this is regarding how if you tell someone you don’t believe in god (or actually it turns out with a lot of people being something you have to “admit” to, as if it were a dirty secret), you are asked “why not?” 9 times out of 10. the writer here makes a fun comparison and says that if you believed in something someone else didn’t, for example little magic elves, it would not be up to everyone else to prove to you why they don’t believe in magic little elves, but up to the believer to provide any reasonable (i.e. grounded in reason) argument as to why anyone should believe in magic little elves.

now obviously i understand the first argument most theists would make, and the first one i thought of: that god is outside of reason, which is an age-old argument i realize is always going to be there. it does sort of make the whole thing a moot point though if you take that defense; okay, so he’s outside of reason. i guess we can’t debate his existence then.

i just thought it was really funny–although still valid–that someone compared god to leprechauns in a scholarly essay.

bam, that’s four trips to the theatre in less than a week. tonight was harry potter (with my little sister, so that makes it okay, right?). yes, i’ve read the book (not the books, plural, just that one so far. it was a gift from someone i really love, and i feel no compulsion to buy the rest for myself), and i liked it, and now i’ve seen the movie, and i have to say i liked it too. it wasn’t a spectacle, it was just a cool movie. i’d let my kids be into harry potter if i had any. i wouldn’t buy them owls though–have you heard about that? kids wanting owls for christmas and some people trying to actually get them, because of harry potter? i think i saw a sound byte for the news one night doing a story about this phenomenon, and there was an owl expert or something saying, “they’re not pets. they’re killing machines.” and i remember laughing quite heartily at that.

these homemade chocolate chip cookies, however, are nothing to laugh at. damn, my mom knows what she’s doing with these things. mmmm, christmassy delicious.

so since i’ve seen four movies this week, i will try to differentiate amongst them. i realize my review for all of them has been “pretty good”, and that’s true. but that doesn’t say as much as it could. and since i have nothing else to talk about, i’ll keep talking about this.

movie i’d most like to see again–ocean’s 11. it was funny and entertaining and as hip a movie as i’ve seen in a while. it was just damn smooth.

movie i’d most like to see again with a girl–vanilla sky. i know it’s not that romantic, but the love story at the center of all the craziness is really sweet, and it’s long enough to allow some making out during the slow parts. heh heh heh.

movie i’d have to be in the right mood to watch again–lord of the rings. you know there are great movies out there, movies that really get you every time because they’re so great. but they’re also so large in scope and therefore such an undertaking to watch (this can mean long, and does with LOTR, but doesn’t have to) that you can only watch them sometimes, even if you’re pretty guaranteed to love them when you do find yourself in the right mood to sit down for a viewing. examples are the godfather, braveheart, pulp fiction–movies you can’t deny are great but couldn’t just watch any old time. this is one of those i think.

movie i’d pretend i wasn’t watching if little kids were watching it and i happened to be in the same room–of course, you wouldn’t go out of your way to see harry potter, because you’re grown up. but it could be worse.

but now that i’ve seen everything there is to see i’m out of luck and will have to find something else to get me out of the house for a few hours now and then. ho-hum.

i did find something to do yesterday, and that was seeing lord of the rings. my review would be something along the lines of “i can see why this film has been so long in coming, because between scenery, effects, and even the depictions of the different races, the visual quality in lord of the rings is remarkable. this is helpful in making the audience able to sit through a three hour film that admittedly can be slow in a few places, but by the end had me very excited and moved. i wouldn’t blame you for not loving this movie if you’re not a fan of fantasy, but personally i really enjoyed it.”

and i finished oscar wilde’s plays last night. you know that line in willy wonka where he says, “this suspense is terrible. i hope it lasts…”? well that line is also in the importance of being earnest. that can’t be a coincidence. oh, i loved the plays, too, if you were wondering.

now i must again find a way to fill my day, so if you’ll please excuse me, i’m off.

today my mom is baking batch after batch of cookies for christmastime. chocolate chips. oatmeal raisins. mmm… chirstmas tastes gooood.

being home for christmas is also nice because i can sleep until something close to 1pm, and not have to feel guilty. what else am i supposed to do? my only agenda item today is “figure out something to do today”.

simple enough. i better go get started.

the rocketeer was . . . awesome, of course. i love that movie. and jennifer connely looks spectacular in it as she usually does when she wears that bright red lipstick, as also featured in the trailers for a beautiful mind which comes out soon . . . (this is me getting faint at the thought of her).

yes, i am girl-crazy. nice of you to notice.

from tonight’s readings from the importance of being earnest by oscar wilde:

“the only way to behave to a woman is to make love to her, if she is pretty, and to someone else if she is plain.”…haha. that’s great. oscar wilde must have been one fun guy to talk to.

disclaimer:girls are people too, blah blah blah…

beauty thing about weblogs . . . sometimes you get to meet (figuratively speaking) people from far away, for example people that live in toronto and know some french and can stop me wondering what the french say when someone sneezes. so for a two.points.collapsing/quid pro quo sponsored international culture lesson you can visit kate, who is very smart and also 100 times cooler than mme st. louis. at least i think that was the name of my junior high french teacher–it really has been a long time….

now i feel old. i will solve that by watching my new dvd of the rocketeer, which is adventurous and fantastical and will make me feel young and spirited. thank you so much shannon for the gift.

hey hey it’s thursday. i’m a day late with the song of the week:

this week it is from sunny day real estate, because i picked up diary recently and it’s good and this song is my favorite. maybe. it’s called song about an angel.

i was thinking i should pick something even vaguely christmas-related this week since jesus’s birthday is on tuesday, but christmas-related songs really aren’t very good, generally. so i figured the fact that this song has “angel” in the title was about as vaguely christmas-related as you can get, and therefore just the right amount related back to the holy holiday.

not that i’m a grump about christmas–i really love it. favorite christmas song, no contest: carol of the bells. but i’m just saying that christmas can’t take over everything. sometimes it’s not really appropriate to make things christmas-themed, i think. not that this is the ultimate example, but still: we saw one of those local, low-quality commercials on comedy central last night during the daily show for an area door outlet–our whatever you’d call it, it being a place you go to buy a door–that advertised their big holiday sale. why doors and holidays go together, i don’t know, but it made me laugh.

so maybe christmas doesn’t have to be in everything, but that’s not to say it isn’t in me. i’m excited. the egg nog is flowing freely (yum) and the presents from me to my friends have been opened, the presents from me to my family are under the tree waiting to be . . . and so on. i just have to catch it’s a wonderful life and the grinch (not the repellant jim carrey version, i’ll have you know) and then it’ll be official.

vanilla sky…different, but worth seeing. i dont’ want to spoil it though.

this is more discussable–i only paid 3.75 to see it. i felt like they were giving movie tickets away. i gave the lady four singles, and i got change back! this is something i like about the suburbs. i plan on taking full advantage of these drastically lower movie ticket prices by seeing at least a couple more flicks at the local AMC between 4 and 6 over the next week. and there’s almost no one in the theatres either.

do you ever read over something you just wrote and think you really must be the most uninteresting person you can think of?

yeah, me too.