I could have spent it building a scale model of the Battle of Helms Deep out of candy.
Maybe next year…
More like this
Well, I didn't exactly plan to break my silence with a non-science post but a couple of you asked if I had any comments on the passing of Senator Helms.
tags: Jesse Helms, politics, rethuglica
There is no need to say anything at this moment because it is not nice to say ugly stuff about the dead.
My drive home last night was a bit weird — there were fireworks going off everywhere, and being a bit disconnected from the calendar with all my recent travel I was puzzled by it all. Was Minnesota celebrating my return?
You have got to be kidding me.
What an exciting project on break! After all that work it would make a person feel guilty to eat it.
Lord of the Rings is totally overrated.
LOL!!!!!!!!
Now that's someone who needs a life! (And I have a leather-bound, acid-free paper edition of LOTR, so it's not as though I'm not a fan.....)
Alon Levy is totally jealous. This puts all my candy castles to shame.
You're right I'm jealous. If I write a crap book and lace it with archaisms to appear sophisticated, nobody will publish it.
Oh please..... When he wrote that there was nothing else on the market at all like it! In fact, he had enormous difficulty getting it published because no publishing house thought they'd make any money from it because there was nothing else like it.
drat now im hungry
Lord of the Rings is UNDERrated.
"lace it with archaisms"
'Lace' is hardly the appropriate term. Tolkien created an entire universe in which to set his tales, complete with a geography, a mythology, and histories and languages for multiple peoples. My students were in awe last semester as they contemplated Tolkien's universe, created over decades while he simultaneously taught Old and Middle English literature. I'm with Ric: LOTR is underrated, in part because it is associated with the 'genre' literature inspired by its unexpected success.
I think LOTR is underrated as well, but in some senses it is considered to be greater than it is. More than there are hints of equality, there are hints of racism. Sexism is portrayed, opposed by a couple strong female characters (note: I am NOT talking about Arwen Evenstar, I mean Galadriel and Eowyn), but in the end the status quo is maintained. The story is written entirely from the victors point of view, and the view it gives of reality is horrible grim. This is understandable, as Tolkien wrote the darkest part of the story during WWII, but he ended up writing an anti-enlightenment moral to the story. The solution to the dilemma of a technology (or knowledge) that can be used for good or evil is to simply destroy it.
Nevertheless, LOTR is a fabulous universe with a depth of reality and unexplained mysteries that I find incredibly engrossing. I think LOTR is less understood than it is over-rated or under-rated.
Actually, if you write a crap book, people will publish it. Just find one of the companies that publishes creationist literature.
Whatever, people. Vast candy dioramas of imaginary battles are totally underrated, it should be obvious.
I'm the one who submitted this to BoingBoing and TheOneRing.net, and it's great to see someone who did something bizarre simply for the crazy joy of it get some credit. It's beautiful not in spite of the strangeness, or the futility, but rather because of them.
I'm with raincoaster. It's not about the final product (however cool and awesome), its about the fun making it. I can imagine everyone giggling and laughing as each new idea about what to do next came up. Life doesn't get better than that. That is a life.
If Star Wars in Middle Earth, er I mean Eragon, can get published, anything can.
That is so sweet!