Yep. My dad and I watched it again—at his behest. That makes twice in one single week. And I still loved the movie! Reasons? I can recognize all the little episodes in the movie as adaptations from episodes in the book. Take the sister’s snake dance, for instance. Totally a ripoff of Mary’s embarrassing pianoforte performance. Music. Awesome. My dad watches this with me. And he says it’s his new favorite movie. And to top off the astounding occurrence, we watched Becoming Jane , too—this same night. Not as fun of a movie—weird acting I thought, but that could be just me—and of course, not a musical, so it would be hard pressed to top Bride & Prejudice. Overall not a movie I’d bother watching more than once. My mom and I were guessing throughout the movie which Austen character the leading man was supposed to resemble. I settled on Willoughby from Sense and Sensibility , with a dash of Darcy thrown in at the beginning, but I could also see some Wickham in there too. Of

This morning—before my brother was up—my dad and I decided to watch Bride and Prejudice , the Indian (like from India) rendition of my all-time favorite novel by a similar name. And man, am I glad we did! I think the most fascinating part of this movie was all the color . Every woman in the movie wore a brightly -colored sari , and of course with costume changes the choice of bright colors changed. The camera shots took advantage of all the color involved, especially during the song-and-dance scenes. Oh yes—this was a musical! Which made it even better (and even less likely to be tolerated by my brother, who fortunately still has not emerged from his room). This was definitely a Bollywood musical; the music was identifiably Indian (think Slumdog Millionaire ) though most of the songs were sung in English. Of course, the names from Austen’s novel had to undergo some changes to become part of the Indian culture, so Elizabeth became Lalita, Jane became Jaya, and so on with all th

I’ve had this personal blog since August of 2006… so we’re coming up on 4 straight years of blogging at one domain. Before that—as some of you will remember—I had a blog at the now-defunct KleverBlogs from January 2005 until the move here. And today we celebrate 503 posts on this blog! *starts throwing confetti* *starts cleaning up confetti* In addition, my e-mail tells me (via a holy and devoted e-mail folder of blog comment notifications) that I have received 753 comments (“replies”) to posts here at the blog. Of course, that does not count the comments that came when the automatic e-mail notifier wasn’t working. But since it’s the only official number I have, we’ll go with that. Congratulations to da_baum for posting the 750th comment! Here’s to another four years of my blogging. But most importantly, to another four years of random comment threads!

So I reckon that about half of you already know I changed the theme—or rather, that I told you specifically that I had changed it. The rest of you, now, shall get an explanation! Reasons I changed my theme: I like my whole secretary-desk-themed titles and modifications. Any chance to use the word “amanuensis” is worth it. So I needed a blog look to match. I also needed visual confirmation of the blog’s name. I had an awesome fountain pen picture that I had stopped using. It is now in use again. This is probably the main reason. I like books and writing. Obviously. I mean, that’s half of what I write about on my blog, right? This seems to be a more serious, or more thought-provoking, theme. (If a theme can provoke thought.) The purple one was gorgeous but just didn’t match the tone of what I think a lot. At least, that which I choose to publish. There’s plenty of thoughts running around in my brain that would match quite nicely with the cute flowery purple-and-blue theme… but th

As you know, this blog has basically no point. It is simply the airing of various observations, fascinations, and rants that find their source in the fount of my mind. That is, I write whatever I feel like writing. But I do not write every time I feel like doing so… not on this blog, at least. Much of my writing is instead left in my journal, or on scrap paper in notebooks strewn about my room. That’s because I often write to clear my head and to organize my thoughts. Most of my writing is, in fact, private—not for public consumption. Some think that to write is to be read—that there is no purpose to writing if the words on paper (or screen) are never intended to be read by someone else—but I think those who write will understand an article I found linked off of some blog or other that I frequent (I don’t remember which one right now). For many of us who love the act of writing—even when we are writing against a deadline with an editor waiting for the copy—there is something mon

I read an article on Yahoo! News today about a man who killed another person in Montana back in the 1950s, skipped out on parole about 20 years after that, and managed to hide in plain sight for several decades until the victim’s grandson tracked him down. This man, Frank Dryman, went by the name Victor Houston while he lived in Arizona, started his own wedding-chapel business, and even married a woman (who knew nothing of his past until he was apprehended). "They [law enforcement] just forgot about me," said Dryman, in his first interview since being caught and sent back to the prison he last left in the 1960s. "I was a prominent member of the community." And what does he have to say about his misdeeds? Well, to quote the article, “he is not kindly disposed to the victim’s grandson,” who found him with some private investigative help. "I can't blame him for what he did," Dryman said. "But I think it was so wrong he spent so much money get

My mom sent this in a forward this morning. I couldn’t stop giggling. This is just a small taste of my kind of humor…. all the comments below the headlines are not my own; rather, they were part of the e-mail as sent to me. Proofreading is a dying art, wouldn’t you say? Man Kills Self Before Shooting Wife and Daughter This one I caught in the SGV Tribune the other day and called the Editorial Room and asked who wrote this. It took two or three readings before the editor realized that what he was reading was impossible!!! They put in a correction the next day. Something Went Wrong in Jet Crash, Expert Says No crap, really? Ya think? Police Begin Campaign to Run Down Jaywalkers Now that's taking things a bit far! Panda Mating Fails; Veterinarian Takes Over What a guy! Miners Refuse to Work after Death No-good-for-nothing' lazy so-and-so's! Juvenile Court to Try Shooting Defendant See if that works any better than a fair trial! War Dims Hope for Peace I can see whe

I love maps. I love to hate Facebook. (Or something like that.) So, you can guess how much I love this. From xkcd, where the larger version may be viewed and laughed at . It appears to be slightly out of date (I’d guess that Facebook is a wee bit bigger than it appears on this map), but still entertaining. I happened to see this graphic over my brother’s shoulder a few minutes ago.

I’ve been reading a book called Writing Space: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print (2nd ed.) by one Jay David Bolter. It’s about the Internet and how it relates to what we have known as reading and writing. It’s fairly interesting, although a bit jargony and academic-sounding. (What can you expect?) One part got me thinking. This book says one of the Internet’s major advantages is the ability to hyperlink, like this . So, since e-readers, Kindles, and Nooks are all digital “reading spaces” (shall we say), do they let you create your own links? For example, if I read some particularly fascinating sentence in GKC’s Orthodoxy , and then later I’m reading C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity and I notice that Lewis addresses the same issue, can I tell the e-reader to make its own little link between the two books? Providing, that is, that I have the time and inclination to go back to the first book ( Orthodoxy in this instance) and find the part I’m remembering… but consider

One project that I had worked on quite a bit, but had to give up, was a story on a nonprofit organization that had just started providing job training for former prison inmates in New York . I didn’t want to give it up, though, so I didn’t really. I kept corresponding with my contact, and though I could not put together a convergence project (i.e., a story with video and slideshow and audio to accompany it), I ended up with a decent print story with a few photos. That story was just posted online today. And the best part about this story was working with my contact. She was amazingly cooperative—not a common experience for a journalist—and even went so far as to stay up late just to find me an official document stating New York’s recidivism rate. I have an e-mail from this lady date-stamped at 11:26 at night, after she was already worn out after a full day at various New York prisons and looking forward to the Memorial Day weekend. I would never have asked her to do that, but she we

I made it home. After spending 24 of the last 40 hours on a bus or in a van. (By which I mean, 20 hours by bus from Manhattan to my cousins’ place, then more than 4 hours from my cousins’ to home. Time spent on bus layovers was made up for by driving from the bus station to my cousins’ and from there to the graduation ceremony.) How am I not crazy? Two good-sized novels pass the time quite pleasantly. (I read some of my favorites, Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom by Louisa May Alcott.) I much prefer being chauffeured over driving myself. Go figure. (That’s why I loved the public transportation options in NYC.) Simon and Garfunkel provide a perfect soundtrack to a trip to New York City. Seriously, half their songs are specific to Manhattan. I loved it. It is actually possible to sleep on a bus. (Not too comfortably, and not too long, but it is possible.) Mothers are fun to talk to on long van trips. And sisters supply a great variety of songs to sing along to. Staring out t

(Just for some meager amusement while I spend all day tomorrow on a bus and all the next day out of reach of the Internet. Sweet dreams.) There's a loyalty that's deeper than mere sentiment And a music higher than the songs that I can sing The stuff of earth competes for the allegiance I owe only to the Giver of all good things... --Rich Mullins But there's more to this life than living and dying, More than just trying to make it through the day; More to this life, more than these eyes alone can see, And there's more than this life alone can be. --Stephen Curtis Chapman For as long as I shall live, I will testify to love I'll be a witness in the silences when words are not enough And with every breath I take, I will give thanks to God above For as long as I shall live, I will testify to love. --Avalon Be thou my vision, oh Lord of my heart Naught be all else to me, save that thou art Thou my best thought, by day or by night Waking or sleeping, thy presence my li

My most recent WJI news project is now up: New York libraries are facing a huge funding cut . For this project, the video was the key piece, and I’ll go ahead and embed it here. Take a look!

Enjoy. :)