Tweets for the day!

• 12:05 Tweets for the day!: 12:26 Tweets for the day!: 12:52 I originally heard this as a joke. Never knew it was an urban... bit.ly/7DEGkE #
• 17:57 Home from work and warming up... Brr... 28 degrees out. There's gotta be a better way... #
• 18:08 @MikeConway Can you also do a jolly Santa? #
• 18:33 Dec. 7 will rock for #BeingHuman fans, and on Dec. 8, we're expecting a news announcement about #TheHobbit #
• 19:55 More Foamy Christmas goodness! www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSZdKUi3QC8 #
• 21:27 Eatin' light tonight with tomato soup ("tomahto" or "tomayto?") and grilled cheese. Yum. #
• 21:39 "You say tomato, I say f&%k you." - @brokenglasseye #
• 22:43 Is it bad that I've wanted to see this ever since I'd heard of it? www.vimeo.com/3141115 #
• 07:05 Ever notice that "Immortal" is one letter shy of "Immoral"? #
• 07:08 @kinkyclawz @Dodochicky Read this yet? thebluewhalepub.com/viewto pic.php?f=316&t=9247 #BeingHuman #

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Tweets for the day!

• 12:26 Tweets for the day!: 12:52 I originally heard this as a joke. Never knew it was an urban legend: www.snopes.com/rel... bit.ly/7WXRvx #
• 17:52 @VoVat Yeah, but I mean new ones after ALL of those spammers... #
• 17:52 Baum Bugle at last! #
• 19:35 No offense to Scott Cummings, but I miss Sean Duffley. #
• 20:27 "George, I've got a feeling we're not in Bristol anymore." thebluewhalepub.com/viewtopic.php?f=316&t=9247 #BeingHuman #
• 21:20 @Lionesskeeper thebluewhalepub.com/viewtopic.php?f=316&t=9247 #BeingHuman #DoctorWho and the Wizard of Oz in 1 fan fic. #
• 06:47 @bbcbeinghuman Now comes the editing process, then the actual episodes premiering, then question if we'll get more! #BeingHuman #

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Tweets for the day!

• 12:52 I originally heard this as a joke. Never knew it was an urban legend: www.snopes.com/religion/rapture.asp #
• 13:27 Tweets for the day!: 17:45 @kinkyclawz If you only had a brain, you'd be really dangerous! lol, love ya. #red # 17:... bit.ly/4B5FDp #

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Tweets for the day!

• 17:45 @kinkyclawz If you only had a brain, you'd be really dangerous! lol, love ya. #red #
• 17:53 A little something to get you in the Christmas spirit: www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJZjR7xyyWE #
• 17:57 Happy birthday @PhillyD #
• 18:10 @kinkyclawz Nervous? Why? 'Cause it's a full moon out? Fortunately, the Atlantic Ocean is protecting me from you... #
• 18:13 Now I really feel bad for Alex DeLarge: forthereels. com/2009/11/01/y2cl-779-ftr-35-35-real-horrorshow/ #AClockworkOrange #
• 18:25 Need to shower, finish that podcast, and answer an e-mail to Sam... #
• 18:43 We do need death panels. We have too many stupid people. #
• 18:51 @kinkyclawz They claim the healthcare reform that's planned will lead to "death panels," deciding who needs help more. #
• 19:02 @kinkyclawz Yeah, but it's hypothetical. I think we should have panels to improve society! Now get to writing... #red #
• 19:07 Working on what might be the funniest story I've ever written... #
• 19:38 THIS is one my absolute favorite Christmas songs: www.youtube.com/watch?v=9j5-SWXKhbM #
• 19:46 @SineadKeenan Heheh... excellent... #Goodnight #
• 20:05 I served a mute man today. #
• 20:29 Very soon, my super-secret project won't be so super-secret. #
• 21:38 I saw two too many asses today. #
• 21:49 Just heard a summary of "Breaking Dawn.& quot; Yep, I'm sticking with #BeingHuman for my vampires. #
• 21:53 This is the summary I heard: tinyurl.com/yeolus6 #
• 22:02 And now I'm not watching that live show anymore... Sorry, when it turns into "Twilight Talk," I tune out. #
• 22:52 Delaying a gift and delaying PAID FOR MERCHANDISE are two different things... #
• 08:14 @bbcbeinghuman Does Nina have a last name? #
• 08:18 @bbcbeinghuman twitpic.com/rti qx - Is this in or out of character, I wonder? (Imagines George transforming in a car. Eeep!) #BeingHum #
• 08:24 The following statement is true: the above statement is false. #
• 09:31 Clicked on a link about an Oz book listed as "the latest and greatest book", and WOT told me that it was not a secure website. Okay... #
• 10:15 @kinkyclawz Maybe it's Nina's? #
• 11:47 @bbcbeinghuman Ah, thanks for all the updates! Until Series 3? #
• 12:01 w onderfulwizardofoz.net/ We're finally getting some real users here! #

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Twilight

With the film version of New Moon, the sequel to Twilight, raking in the cash, I'm left wondering where that money came from, because it's enough to get the country out of the economic crisis. (Okay, probably not... But it sure seems like it!)

Now me, I haven't read any of the books or seen the movies. I don't even want to. What irks me is how insanely popular the series is and how insanely devoted the fans are, so the media buzz has been non-stop. I'd be in the same boat about Harry Potter, but at least the media buzz only happened when a new book or movie came (or comes) out in that franchise.

I heard about Twilight from friends on MySpace, who mentioned it in statuses and bulletins. Then, there were comments on a YouTube fan video I'd made. Note: the video was Rebbecca St. James' song Lion matched with clips from The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe. (Why? Because the song was on the album Music Inspired By The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe, and had actually been written for that album, and EMI and Disney are both YouTube partners, so there'd be no problems with the video.)

Someone thought the song fit Twilight, and at first I shrugged it off. Then, after reading more comments, someone mentioned Twilight was about romantic vampires. I commented that I doubted Rebbecca St. James, a Christian music artist, would license her song for that. And then came the hate. Seriously, these insane Twilight fans started criticizing me for not making the video a Twilight video, "because that's what the song matches."

Some even claimed it didn't fit Narnia. I mentioned that I did it because the song was on a Narnia album, and if people didn't like that it wasn't a Twilight video, then they could make their own. Some idiot seriously replied "Making videos is a waste of my time." I thought, "So trolling on YouTube videos isn't?"

Finally, I was sick of it, and disabled comments and ratings. If people couldn't civilly enjoy my video for what it was, that was their problem and not mine. Narnia fans who could appreciate my videos sent their comments as comments on my channel and as personal messages, which I didn't mind.

Honestly, romantic vampires? How messed up is this? And reading a bit more online, it sounds like it gets even crazier. Sparkling bodies, and werewolves who transform at will.

Watching a commercial for New Moon on television, my sister remarked "Why can't this Bella girl get a normal guy? She's dating vampires and werewolves!" Her husband replied that in the next one, she could date a mummy. "He'd be pre-wrapped."

I've seen lots of comments that the books aren't that good and neither are the movies. ("So, Edward and Jacob take their shirts off, but Bella doesn't? What good is that?" "Yeah...") This could be proof that people do enjoy crap, but try getting them to admit that. Rather, it seems, people like Twilight because they like to fantasize about being intimate with the Supernatural... Or Edward Cullen is the hottest guy ever. (And if that one scene I saw on TV of Robert Pattinson taking his shirt off is how that looks, girls have LOW standards...)

It's not healthy to long after a person who does not exist or is dead. Fantasizing is not bad in moderation, but obsession is not good. As an Oz fan, I run across people who wish they were Princess Ozma's boyfriend or husband. (I actually own a book where a thinly-veiled Gary Stu becomes involved with Ozma.) Jonathan Ian Mathers, writer, voice actor and animator of the popular internet cartoon "Neurotically Yours" has often expressed concern at the amount of nude fan art of his female former Goth character Germaine. (Main character Foamy shouts, "stop sending me nude pictures of Germaine! There's 80 gigs of them on my hard drive!")

I've never been much of one for vampires, but I want my vampires scary, and if they're not, they should be aware that normal relationships are impossible. (If they're immortal, people they love will grow, age, and die while they remain the same.) After seeing the BBC's Being Human, I kind of got a fondness for werewolves, and also love the film An American Werewolf in London. In both, being a werewolf is a curse. It's not fun, and they have no control over what happens to them under the full moon or what they'll do. (They can control where they'll be, for example, in Being Human, George makes sure he transforms in an enclosed room or in the woods.)

I wouldn't care if the Twilight fans and media buzz could be easily tuned out by those who aren't interested, but it's not. Instead, it's force fed to us almost everyday. It's maddening!

Return to the Hundred Acre Wood

I loved A.A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh series when I was young. In fact, The House At Pooh Corner was the first full-length book I ever read. The stories of a little boy who was actually playing with his toys and woodland animals in his imagination are certainly quite charming. That led on to my reading other books, and many of the childhood classics I enjoyed so have become treasured pieces in my library.

Many of the books I've loved have had sequels written since: Peter And Wendy has been followed with the film Hook and the book Peter Pan in Scarlet, The Chronicles of Narnia were followed by an ill-fated and largely forgotten book called The Giant Surprise, goodness knows how many people have written further adventures for Alice and the Wonderland and Looking-Glass characters, and similarly, there is a countless number of further adventures in the Land of Oz written after L. Frank Baum's death. Many of these books feel like poor imitations of the initial author's style.

When I discovered that the Milne estate had authorized a new Winnie-the-Pooh book, I was interested, though put off a bit. I largely forgot about it, however. Finally, earlier this week, I found the book at a local supermarket while looking for a card. (Coincidentally, I had settled on a Pooh-themed card.) Thumbing through it, it piqued my interest. I rarely buy books off the rack (in fact, most of my books were collected through online orders), but I did this time.

I couldn't get my hopes up too high. As A.A. Milne and his son Christopher Robin Milne are dead, likely the executors of the estate could only do so much. There will never be another A.A. Milne, and though there are some impressive imitators, there will never be another E.H. Shepard.

I was surprised at the opening note, which featured the author, David Benedictus, conversing with the Pooh characters about the writing of the book, gloomy Eeyore claiming that he would not get it right.

And how did Benedictus do?

Ultimately, Eeyore was right. As I said, there will never be another A.A. Milne. While the stories were good and very fun to read, they lacked Milne's charm and the wit that flew over my head as a child but I picked up on when I was older.

That is not to say the stories are without charm, but it is completely Benedictus'. Some tones were different, for example, while death is not addressed directly in Milne, Bendictus' Owl mentions he has his Uncle Robert's ashes in a vase on his mantle, and they were scattered (and mostly recollected) when Owl's house blew over in The House At Pooh Corner.

Some of the humor was a little odd, for example, in a cricket game, when Christopher Robin explains that England and Australia have had cricket tournaments against each other, Kanga says that she and Roo will represent Australia. I didn't pick up on this a bit, then realized that of course, one of Australia's most iconic animals is the kangaroo.

Christopher Robin left the Hundred Acre Wood at the end of The House At Pooh Corner to go to school, but Return to the Hundred Acre Wood finds him returning to his friends from the original books, presumably on Summer holiday. New adventures and endeavors are had by the characters, and we meet a new character, in the tradition of Milne. (Kanga and Roo were newcomers to the Forest in Winnie-the-Pooh and Tigger arrives in The House At Pooh Corner.)

The new character is Lottie the Otter, a rather proud and haughty creature who comes off as a bit modern, but eventually, I forgot she was a new character and let her go ahead and join my old favorites.

Mark Burgess' illustrations are lovely tributes to how E.H. Shepard "decorated" the original books. They closely follow Shepard's original designs, while Burgess adds his own style.

Overall, if you can overlook that this is someone who isn't A.A. Milne writing Pooh stories (which, seeing how Disney's popular sugar-coated version has been expanded upon, it's not really the first time), Return to the Hundred Acre Wood is worth a read. I wouldn't mind giving it to a niece or nephew, after they had enjoyed Milne's original works.

I don't write here often enough...

SO... Audrey and Shaun offered to let me move in with them. Thinking it over, I decided it would be a good idea. I could help them out, and my own bills would be greatly reduced. Pretty much, all I'd have to do is get a cell phone to replace my current phone service. Also, if I ever wanted to travel, no worrying about "Who'll take care of Jack?"

My biggest problem has been my work situation. While I could easily transfer, I'd prefer not to. I love the people I work with and it wouldn't feel right, doing the same work for different people.

So, today Shaun took me around to seven places and I filled out applications for them all. They were...

• Sam's Club
• Rapid Robert's
• Movie Gallery
• Dillon's
• Pet Warehouse
• Price Cutter
• Harter House
  

I'm kind of hoping for Sam's or Movie Gallery. But if I don't hear anything from them soon, I'll just transfer. Probably my best bet would be Price Cutter, as I actually worked at a Price Cutter before. That work experience would probably also increase my chances at Sam's, Harter House, or Dillon's.

Now to break the news to the folks at work...