Monthly Archives: January 2009

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Oh Sci Fi original movies, how I love you

Or really, rather, namer of Sci Fi original movies, how I love YOU. I don’t actually ever watch the Sci Fi channel’s original movies, but I take immense delight in their awesome premises and incredibly short, sweet, and to the point literal titles. Check out tonight’s line up of fantasticness:

9:00 AM Pterodactyl
11: 00 AM Savage Planet
1:00 PM Rock Monster
3:00 PM Abominable
5:00 Yeti
7:00 PM Ice Spiders

Notice the bravado of placing Abominable and Yeti back to back. How do they differ? I must know! And I love how it moves in a logical progression. Yeti, Ice Spiders, both cold, both possible, (and probable) killers… And they’re consistent in this attention to detail. Check out next Sunday’s line up:

Larva
The Hive
Caved In: Prehistoric Terror
Marabunta: Terror in Burline Pines
Kaw
Black Swarm
Locusts
Locusts: The 8th Plague
Crocodile 2: Death Roll
Anonymous Rex

Again, Black Swarm, Locusts, and Locusts: The 8th Plague all in one run? FANTASTIC. (Although I should mention that not all of those actually are Sci-Fi original movies. But the fact that they’ll put their movies up against other movies WITH THE SAME NAME? Genius. I love them.)

And Anonymous Rex? Best title ever. It gives Chupacabra: Dark Seas (otherwise known as Chupacabra on a Boat here in Casa de Snell, and Chupacabra Terror when it came out on video) a run for it’s money. AND OH MY GOODNESS, HOW AM I NOT WATCHING THIS SHOW? “A detective series featuring a velociraptor PI and a secret society of dinosaurs disguised as humans.” With Faye Dunaway and Issac Hayes and Daniel Baldwin. Seriously? I feel like I’ve won some kind of bizarre lottery.

Oh Sci-Fi, you do my heart good.

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Jesus the Christ Chapter 24

Oh goodness, this is going to start being very difficult to read, isn’t it? That first paragraph was heartbreaking.

I really need to ponder and study this: “The man’s understanding was enlightened; up to that moment he had thought that all depended upon Jesus; he now saw that the issue rested largely with himself.” This whole issue is a tangled and confusing one for me; what constitutes having sufficient faith combined with determining God’s will gets all muddled for me until I’m not sure if I need to have faith that God can do things, or that He will or that it is His will. Then there’s the added twist of needing to have faith in our own ability to have faith, and having faith in priesthood holders serving in the name of God. Add into it that “faith to be healed is as truly a gift of God as is faith to heal”, and my brain is spinning.

“…their failure to comprehend was in part due to the fact that the human mind is loath to search deeply into anything it desires not to understand.” Whoa. Did this smack you all in the face too?

I love the story of Christ telling Peter to catch the fish that held money in it’s gullet. (Don’t you love the word gullet?) It just confirms to me, yet again, that even though it is an earthly thing, God knows where all the money is, and gets it where it needs to be if we have faith that He will do so.

Thoughts?

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Dreams

I had really funny dreams the other night- well, funny in retrospect, I suppose, I wasn’t laughing in them. But the one that has stuck with me was one wherein I was still in college but had gone through the quarter without going to my classes. (This really is not a stretch, not like the dreams where I’m in high school and haven’t gone to class.)

In the dream I hadn’t missed them maliciously, or even really consciously, they’d just kind of slipped my mind. So, it was the end of the quarter and I realized that I should at least stop in before the quarter ended. Our teachers were handing out our evaluations, and the eval for my class on the Culture of the Simpsons (yes, the TV show. And no, I didn’t actually take this class in college, although it wouldn’t surprise me at all if it was an actual class at UCSC now) said: “Statistics show that 30% of e-mail correspondence includes at least one reference to the Simpsons. It’s a shame that none of those ended up in your TV journal.”

Maybe you had to be there. But the combination of the percentage and the snark and the class made me laugh. What is my brain trying to tell me? Oh, and just in case you were wondering, I passed all my classes in the dream. Some of them just barely, but I did pass them all. I know you were worried. :)

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Of good report

I had a lovely morning, a wonderful visit with my loved Hilary, a yummy salad for lunch (which I had fun making with Zoe’s help), and a delicious cupcake. Now both girls are taking much needed naps – Audrey is teething and tired, and I think Z is either coming down with something or has the remnants of something, so sleep for both of them is an excellent thing. I’m about to go relax with a good book, life is good.

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Jesus the Christ Chapter 23

I don’t really have a lot to say about this chapter, it was pretty short, and pretty straight to the point.

I do wonder what exactly Moses and Elijah talked to Christ about. Did they lovingly remind Him of the promises He’d made, of the faith their people had in Him? Did they encourage Him, express their faith? Did they thank Him? I just wonder.

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The Monsters of Templeton

I finished this book today, and oh goodness was it lovely. It’s the story of Willie Upton, who returns to her hometown in disgrace after having an affair with her dissertation professor while on a dig with him in Alaska, and then trying to run down his wife in a plane. (I know!) And she’s pregnant. Her home town is Templeton, named after her ancestor who founded the town, and another ancestor is an acclaimed American writer, so she’s kind of a local celebrity.

On the day she returns, a gigantic beast washes up on the shore of the lake, and her mother confesses that her father, who she previously understood to be one of three guys from her mom’s hippy days in San Francisco is really someone from Templeton. But her mom won’t tell her who it is, and will only give her one clue as to his identity.

This sets Willie on a search through her family’s convoluted and somewhat crazy history, which is laid out both in documents and first person accounts by the ancestors. It develops into a rich and wide picture of the history of a city; from before it’s development when Native Americans lived on the land through current time. As Willie learns more about her family, we learn more about the town, the mistakes people made, the madness that can be passed through families, and not least, the lake monster, who could have been a weird gimmicky element but ended up being a really lovely metaphor that worked on a number of levels.

It’s one of those books that holds a world that exists on it’s own, and when you put it down you can’t help but believe that life is continuing on there. The author, Lauren Groff, based it (kind of) on her life growing up in Cooperstown; she describes it as a slantwise version of the original, and I think that contributes greatly to it’s feeling so genuine and complete.

Current total: 2
Just finished: The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff
Next Up: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

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Jesus the Christ Chapter 22

I have a killer headache, and my mind is still in kind of a tizzy after just watching Lost, so I’m not going to write much about this chapter today, but there are a couple things I will mention, then you guys can pick up my slack in the comments. :)

I love the story of the woman who goes to Christ and isn’t offended by the “give the children’s food to the dogs” analogy. She so easily could have been, or just discouraged, but she kept firm with her faith and was so blessed.

I love the language Talmage uses when talking about Christ as the rock and nothing prevailing against it. Great imagery.

I really feel for Peter. He just doesn’t get it at times, and he’s trying SO hard.

The whole idea of Corben is really interesting to me. (Beside the fact that every time I read the word I hear “Corben Dallas, multipass” in my head)

I find it slightly funny that Talmage feels he has to spell out specifically that Peter was in fact, not Satan.

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Possible metaphors

From rehearsal tonight:

In dance 1, I taught my rockin’ boy soloist his hip hop section. We tried to count it out and it got all confused and we were both dancing it wrong until I said, “just dance it where it feels like it goes”, which both of us then did, in perfect unison.

In dance 2, I spent a good 10-15 minutes re-choreographing a 2 8-count section because of a placement problem we just couldn’t resolve. The new moves had everyone confused and me slightly frustrated, so we let out a little early. Two minutes out of the room I realized the solution to the problem: all we needed to do was move a couple people and we could keep the old steps that everyone knew and was comfortable with.

Also in dance 2, the speed of the moves that begin the dance intimidated the boys, so we slowed them WAAAAAY down. We’ve been practicing them at the super slow speed, and when I told the boys tonight that we were speeding them up, they all freaked out. So we started practicing the moves with a slow count which I incrementally sped up until they were easily doing the moves at the speed I needed.

I think there are object lessons in those experiences for me, but I’m tired and going to bed. :)

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At this moment

Both girls are napping- Hallelujah!

Audrey has two little tiny teeth just ready to poke through.

I need to fill out the form to get myself excused from jury duty.

I’m going to firm up the choreography I’m teaching tonight- yay for big movement across the stage!

… I think that’s it- what’s going on with you?

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Jesus the Christ Chapter 21

Some thoughts:

This jumped out at me: “…because of their lack of faith He was unable to accomplish any great work except to heal a few exceptional believers on who He laid His hands.” How often do we limit what Christ can accomplish by our unbelief?

I love that the disciples are instructed to be “wise as serpents, and harmless as doves”, it reminds me of Ammon who is described as “wise, yet harmless” when King Lamoni offers him up to half of his kingdom. Here were men with incredible power given them by God, and they’re reminded to be like Christ and not use it in the wrong ways.

I keep being struck that it must have been really tiring to be Christ. He really rarely had any time to Himself, and when He tried to go off, people just followed Him. He must have been very tired. It’s instructive to me that in the times that He did have to Himself, He prayed.

I love the walking on water story, love, love love it.So many incredibly useful parallels.

Oooh, I really like this: “It is not sufficing to accept the precepts of Christ as we may adopt the doctrines of scientist, philosophers, and savants, however great the wisdom of those sages may be; for such acceptance is by mental assent or deliberate exercise of will, and has relation to the doctrine only as independent of the author.”

I find it interesting that it was the truth about Christ’s identity and His role in the salvation of man that caused so many to turn away from Him- not some other doctrine. We throw around the whole “wheat and chaff” analogy a lot in a really judge-y way when something happens that makes people question the prophet or some church policy, but I think this is where it truly applies. If you’re choosing to turn away from Christ, you’re in a worrisome spot. I don’t know that I’m expressing myself right, hopefully you get what I’m saying.