Can Michelle even name 26 movies?

1. Pick one film to represent each letter of the alphabet.

2. The letter “A” and the word “The” do not count as the beginning of a film’s title, unless the film is simply titled A or The, and I don’t know of any films with those titles.

3. Return of the Jedi belongs under “R,” not “S” as in Star Wars Episode IV: Return of the Jedi. This rule applies to all films in the original Star Wars trilogy; all that followed start with “S.” Similarly, Raiders of the Lost Ark belongs under “R,” not “I” as in Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. Conversely, all films in the Lord of the Rings series belong under “L” and all films in the Chronicles of Narnia series belong under “C,” as that’s what those filmmakers called their films from the start. In other words, movies are stuck with the titles their owners gave them at the time of their theatrical release. Use your better judgment to apply the above rule to any series/films not mentioned.

4. Films that start with a number are filed under the first letter of their number’s word. 12 Monkeys would be filed under “T.”

5. Link back to Blog Cabins in your post so that I can eventually type “alphabet meme” into Google and come up #1, then make a post where I declare that I am the King of Google.

NOTE: Movies in parenthesis I have not seen, but couldn’t think of a movie I had seen starting with that letter.

Arsenic & Old Lace
Boondock Saints
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon
Dogma
Ed Wood
Fifth Element
Good Night & Good Luck
Hero
Iron Monkey
Johnny Dangerously
Kingdom of Heaven
Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
Matrix, The
Nightmare Before Christmas, The
Once Upon a Time in Mexico
Princess Bride, The
Q – (Queen, The)
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
Stardust
Tombstone
U Untouchables
V – (V for Vendetta) Victor, Victoria
What’s Eating Gilbert Grape
X-Men
Y – (You Can’t Take It with You)
Z – (Zorro)

(via Nathan and Eric and Ilya…)

ADDENDUM the First:
Janiece‘s List reminded me I had, in fact, seen and enjoyed a ‘V’ movie.!

I found the results of the current poll to be very interesting.

Though I have to admit that I think it’s wishful thinking about Bill O’Reilly’s head.

If it is warm enough to be wearing a mini-skirt or short-shorts, then it is too warm to be wear big ugly fluffy boots.

Conversely, if it is cold enough to be wearing big ugly fluffy boots, then it is too cold to be bare legged in short-shorts or a mini-skirt.

Also, big fluffly boots and skinny jeans that don’t fit either into the boots or outside the boots, but instead are kinda scrunched up at the top of the boot? That just looks plain stupid.

Dress for the weather people. Y’all have the internet, use it.

In fact, let me help. Here’s the Morgantown weather and forecast. Not only does it tell you the projected temperature for today, it also projects temperatures for several days in the future! This means you could check the weather before you even went to bed!

I realize this is a strange concept, but really, it’s so much better than the alternative of thinking you look hawt, when in fact you look like a fool.

Also, to the tall blonde woman: If your chest is large enough to have it’s own zip code, belting your dress directly underneath your breasts looks like what it is: you’re impressed with your boobs and want everyone else to be as well.

You may as well just wear a Hooters shirt and be done with it.

</end snark>

I got nothing today, so let’s play a game of word association.

As usual, to get around the spam filters: old word = new word.

Here we go!

Mistakes =

The 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, originally Armistice Day and called Remembrance Day elsewhere, but changed by President Eisenhower to honor all veterans.

“It is well that war is so terrible; else we would grow too fond of it”
— Robert E. Lee

“A man’s country is not a certain area of land, of mountains, rivers, and woods, but it is a principle; and patriotism is loyalty to that principle.”
— George William Curtis

It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt.
— John Philpot Curran Speech upon the Right of Election (1790)

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Department of Veterans Affairs Veterans Day Web Page

The VFW website

The Great War

WWII Memorial

Korean War Memorial

Vietnam War Memorial

Digital Memorial for those killed in Afghanistan and Iraq

Data on Veterans from the US Census Bureau

For the Fallen

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres.
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England’s foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain,
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

When Michael and Grandmom got back from the store, Michael yelled at me to look at the crows. I looked out the front door–nothing. So I slipped on my clogs, grabbed my camera, and went out the kitchen door (where he and Grandmom were coming in).

I’ve never seen so many crows before; when the traffic eased, you hear the raucous noise they made all cawing together.

I’m reminded of a story in the Sandman series, “A Parliament of Rooks.”

Why were so many crows all gathered in one place? They were circling in the sky, and perched in the top of trees, so it doesn’t seem like anything on the ground was the cause (at least I hope not, considering the sheer number of crows).

And here is a good page from Cornell about crows. It doesn’t look like crows in this area should be migratory, though I suppose it could be a group coming in for the winter. Though that seems unlikely.

Yesterday and today, I awoke from my nap to discover that the server on which my website lives had gone down.

Not only do I have the sense of missing things while I’m asleep, I wake to discover that I was actually missing things while asleep.

This happens once more and I’m going to be afraid to take a nap.

So, as previously mentioned, I read a lot while I was sick. Eleven books in a week, in fact.

Of course, even though I’ve returned to work, we haven’t gone back to the gym, so I’ve got more time in the evenings to read.

So what have I been reading? A little of this and a little of that.

I’m finishing up Donna Leon’s Commisario Guido Brunetti series. I’ve really enjoyed this series, particularly spending time in Venice. Brunetti loves Venice, so I enjoy it when he’ll suddenly stop and look and the beauty of the city around him. And of course crime, justice, and politics in Italy are so different from what you read about in American police mysteries.

I’ve also been reading Hellboy and B.P.R.D. comics. Of the two, I prefer the Hellboy comics, although both are good. I really enjoy Hellboy’s attitude towards life. And with both comics, I tend to prefer Mike Mignola’s collection of stories rather than the volumes that are a single contained story. This may in part be due to my natural love of short stories, but I think that in some ways the shorter format makes the stories a little tighter. Regardless, they’re a lot of fun.

I also read (and re-read) several books by Nina Kiriki Hoffman. I adore her characters and her writing. She write a lot about teenage characters and coming of age stories, but don’t let that keep you away from her writing, because her stories are solid, and although her young adults can be a bit angsty, its usually with a good dose of humor.

And I read some other books, but you can wander over to my book blog and check those out for yourself if you’re curious.

Now you must excuse me, but I’m in the middle of and Emma Bull book, and would like to return to it.

And maybe take a nap as well.

So, no more flower pr0n until the spring. In fact, as I type, Michael is outside raking dead leaves over my flower beds (and also bagging any remaining dead leaves. I have to say that this is one chore I don’t mind getting out of, being as I’m sick. I’m sure it’s good exercise and all, as well as good preparation for shoveling snow, but I don’t particularly like it. So I’m more than delighted to do the laundry and then take a nap.)

And as far as the leaves, it hardly seems fair that two trees could generate so many leaves.

Here is Michael raking the leaves from the silver maple over the flower beds at the bottom of the hill. There is a distinct, visible difference between the silver maple and sugar maple leaves. The silver maple leaves are crunched up, brown, and pathetic looking. The sugar maple’s leaves are yellowish brown and slightly curled.

Can you guess which tree I prefer?

Here is our side yard, which is dominated by the sugar maple. It dropped a lot of leaves. I’m guessing that after covering my flower beds Michael will probably have around ten bags to put out. (No, our area doesn’t have a special leaf pick up.)

And now for something completely different…

We had a beautiful sunset Tuesday night. Twas the start of a beautiful evening I must say.

So my website was down for about three hours, and I have to say my dealings with Dreamhost were about a thousand times better than my dealings with iPowerweb. I received updates on my Dreamhost Panel and then through e-mail, as to the status of my website.

Of course down time always sucks, but I understand it happens sometimes, and appreciate knowing what is happening.

In the meantime, Grandmom has returned; Mom and Dad dropped her off before the game.

And speaking of the game, WVU is playing Cincinnati, and things aren’t going well for our heroes.

(sigh)

ADDENDUM the First:
Umm… Tony just called Pat White “tough as an acorn.” I think he just made that up.

Plus, Pat White just took a swing at someone? WTF?

ADDENDUM the Second:
HOLY CRAP! OVERTIME!

ADDENDUM the Third:
Shit.

It’s Mountaineer Week!

Mountaineer Week kicks off with the WVU vs Cincinnati game tonight at 7:00. I’m hoping for more fireworks.

The Craft Fair and Quilt Show start Friday. If anyone wants some WV crafts (wine, honey, pottery etc) let me know. (I’ll see if I can find a list of artists selling their crafts this year.)

And most importantly, there will be funnel cake ALL WEEK!

Please leave me alone so I can go back to my nap.

…

That might actually make a good tagline for me for the next couple weeks.

Today was my first day back to work.

Which explains why I had one of the most difficult classes I’ve had in about a year. Normally things go smoothly, but occasionally when I teach my web design course I get very slow typists and or people who need a little longer to “get” what they’re doing when writing HTML code.

I had all of the above today.

Then I lost the ability to import data into my access database, and was unable to figure out what the heck I’d done wrong.

I did a couple other things, but I’m pretty sure I’ll need to look at them tomorrow to see what I did wrong there too.

Don’t get me wrong, I am feeling better, but I am tired. And if I truly had mono again, I’ll remain tired for a couple more weeks.

Now you’ll have to excuse me, I need to try and stay awake for another couple hours before I can go to bed, because if I take a nap now, I won’t be able to go to sleep later, and that’s just a vicious circle I don’t want to get into.