Today’s title comes from Samantha Bee of the Daily Show when she was doing her special Back to School Edition of "This Week in God."
I’ve had a list here of things to write about for a while, I just haven’t gotten around to it, so this may be a longer post than normal, but I hope you enjoy:
To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Star Wars, the original prop of Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber (presumably his first) will go to the International Space Station for a week in October. There was a ceremony when it was transfered from L.A. to Houston with Chewbacca, Bobba Fett and a couple stormtroopers on the tarmac.
This month’s roundtable was amazingly hot. For a while we’ve been hounding our professionals to find our coffee pots so we can have coffee and tea for the leaders. And we got them (I think they’re new ones though, they’re not the urns we used to have, but restaurant machines with two peculators and two warmers), and of course, the night we met was unseasonably hot, and combined with the coffee machines, turned the hallway into a sauna. I spent most of the meeting outside where it was cooler (and talking with various people, including Dr. Davis!).
Last week I headed out to Buffs to meet Tom and Evan, but beforehand I got a call from Matt. He was there, and needed my help with a trivia question about Buffy. I was happy to provide the answer: The Bronze (what was the name of the club the Scooby Gang frequented?). Sadly, by the time we got there, Matt was gone, but we still had a good time. I also went out to Buffs this week with Evan, another good time, although a fight was close to breaking out at the table behind us, but a police officer quieted them all down.
A few weeks back I saw the movie "War." It wasn’t bad, a good mindless action movie I thought. One where you could put it on, and work on something or leave the room, and you’ll still know what’s going on when you get back. The acting was pretty bad, by everyone, but still a good time. I met Sarav at the theater, and met one of his co-workers, Eric. We had a good time (and I had sour patch kids), so all in all, an enjoyable evening.
I lost my copy of "Mad Season" by Matchbox 20. It’s a great CD, and for the life of me, I can’t figure out where I put my copy…
The VFW sent me return address labels. Which was nice, although two things bothered me. First, the ink tends to smear, but again, they were free so I can’t complain too much. Two: Were they really free? They asked me for money. And while I feel like I should give them some money, I didn’t ask for return address labels, they just sent them to me, so I won’t. I was impressed though that the sicker sheets had information about the VFW on the back and information about when and how to display a flag. I thought that was good information to be passing out, even if it was with a huge helping of guilt.
A friend of mine that I worked with over the summer had a really awesome handle/top on his Nalgene, and I found a place that sells them, so I’m thinking of picking one up one of these days.
A cool new site I found is wowio.com. You can download three free e-books a day, and a lot of them are just PDFs of physical books. I’ve downloaded a bunch so far, and some are hit or miss, but others are actually books I’ve seen at places like Barnes and Noble and even the Scout shop. They also have study guides and graphic novels, so it’s worth a look if you’re interested.
For my picnic the other day (which was great by the way, thanks to everyone for coming, we’ll do it again next year), I picked up a boccie set from Sears. While there, I saw that they have a men’s clothing brand by the name of Structure. The store/brand Structure was absorbed into Express and is now Express for Men, I thought they would have retained that copyright, but I guess not.
Another fun fact about the OA song: it’s also the alma mater of Transylvania University (located in Kentucky), which is also the Russian National anthem from before the Bolshevik revolution.
And of course, now that they have died down, I have to add that the Greece forest fires were just ripe for puns (and I did make a few while they were going on).
I picked up some sushi the other day because I wanted some but didn’t have the time to cook any, and I had a piece of Eel for the first time. It tasted fine, but had a weird texture: it was a little stringy and tough. But I did like it, but I’m more prone to order salmon or tuna.
In some sad news, fantasy writer Robert Jordan died a few days ago after a long battle with Amyloidosis. It is very strange, considering how positive he always was and how sudden it seemed to happen (a week or two before he posted to his blog about how well he felt). Nothing has been set in stone, but he left his wife (who is his editor) a partial manuscript and tons of notes and audio dictations to finish the last book in The Wheel of Time, "A Memory of Light." It’s sad that he didn’t get to finish it, the other five books he had planned for the series (two more prequels and three outriggers) or his other fantasy series "Infinity of Heaven."
I was first introduced to The Wheel of Time by a good friend working at summer camp, and sadly, I have no way of getting in touch with him, to talk about this, the series, and the fact that I’m reading it. I tried to read "The Eye of the World" three times before getting through it on my fourth time, sadly, other reading obligations (read: school books) got in the way and I couldn’t stay with it. But when I had the chance, I read it, and I just finished book five over the summer. It’s amazing too to find out the number of people who read the series (mostly at camp too no less), and the great conversations we’ll have about the series.
I think that’s it for now (as if this wasn’t long enough), hope you enjoyed. Look for another update soon, and check out the new photo galleries and new book reviews in their appropriate sections! Have a great one!
