Deviant Dispatches

Today, rather than performing an analysis of my recent obsession, Mumford and Sons , I'm directing you to some other people's reviews . They differ quite a bit , and one is even downright scathing (I don't see how anyone could hate them so much). Here, have a couple of music videos , too. Then, decide for yourself what you think of them. I've got a novel to write. (Or maybe I'll go back to bed. But probably I'll write.)

This sunset is from our journey to the North this weekend - rather, our trip Sunday night and Monday. As Spousal Unit pointed out, it was nice that we could decide on Saturday to visit my family and then just go, rather than saving money for months and taking a week and a half off of work and driving for two days. I'll be enjoying that for a while. And tomorrow (if you're lucky) I'll tell you about our amazing detour to Minnesota.

Yesterday at work, I was reminded of a scene from the movie Fern Gully. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it to everyone, even though it's a kid's cartoon. It's about a rainforest full of fairies and other creatures that are way too adorable to be real, fighting for survival against evil humanity's drive to have more stuff. Robin Williams plays an excellent roll in the movie as Batty, who is (surprise) a bat, recently escaped from a lab where he was experimented on repeatedly. His rap is one of the most incredible things I've ever heard, and I still listen to the full version on a regular basis. Makes me feel better when I'm having a bad day - at least I haven't been electrified and dipped in paint and all that. Another great character in the movie is Hexxus, who was locked away by weird fairy magic in a weird tree in the rainforest. He's the embodiment of pollution, and when he's accidentally freed, he starts getting his sli...

I love the New York Times's various book lists. They're a great place to find new reading material and to discover things you never even heard about. The lists composed by the common man are great, too, even if I don't agree with their placement all the time. The most recent of these is the Top 100 Sci Fi/Fantasy Books list, voted into order by fans. As you can imagine, I totally eat up things like this. They put too many books in my massive to-be-read pile, and this one is no exception. My first interest on the list is number 5, A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R. R. Martin. Everyone's been talking about it, but I'm not exhausted of hearing about it yet. With all the semi-entertaining scifi I've been reading lately - good plot but no characters, or bad plot but great world building - I need something well-rounded. This could be it, with warring families, supernatural beings, an exiled princess, and a winter longer than anyone could ever want (eve...

I'm very excited to get my first paycheck from this job, for several reasons. One is being able to pay bills next month. Along with that come all the other ways in which I should be responsible, like getting new glasses for myself and Spousal Unit, car repairs, saving for an apartment, all that good adult stuff we should be doing. But there's another reason I'm excited. I can finally take a class again. Yes, I want to go back to school eventually, but I'm not talking about those kinds of classes. I'm talking about creative, fun classes, the ones in which I have a hobby-esque interest. I want to learn about these things, and the best way to do that is through an instructor. For example, belly dancing. My original belly dance lessons were through Ameena Ahava in my home town. I only took lessons for two months before heading to New Mexico, and I'd love to do more. Plus, I miss the cameraderie of a bunch of ladies shakin' their groove thing and ...

Dear Green Bay Packers , Thank you for the best wedding present anyone could ever get: your incredible Super Bowl win . On December 26 last year, you started winning and didn't stop until you reached the ultimate goal: the Lombardi trophy. Spousal Unit and I got married on January 8, in the midst of your winning streak and the day before playoffs began. Now that's a great way to start a honeymoon. But we didn't have a chance to watch hardly any of your games with other Packer backers. Up until this May, we were living in New Mexico, where there certainly are Packer fans (we saw your leather jackets and license plates displayed). But they're not terribly prevalent, and we missed watching with our families and friends at home, who are also green and gold at heart. And so I propose the following. I'm guessing that, because you got us a wedding present, you plan to give us an anniversary present. I'm especially hopeful because we are back in the la...

This is where I go every week to take my sunset pictures: a small dock that Spousal Unit always rocks like crazy to make me think I'll fall off. (He's not really trying to kill me. Promise.) And here are last week's sunsets.