zingibruja

Oh, well...I'm just putting up this post to say that I totally ROCK at angle-ranking in the PAT and am getting pretty good at top-front-end problems, too.  Yeah!!  Go me!!!  That is all.

The wind came in from the plain that night, tearing over the Uppers and flushing great mounds of dust down the lip of the tunnel main. I didn’t object too much, but Llumo went pacing from room to room, hunching his shoulders and letting out a deep-throated moan every time a violent gust passed overhead. Theia did her best to comfort him. God shaking out the laundry, she called it, giving him her best dimpled smile, and drawing him into her arms for as long as he would put up with. Hruhen sat in the corner of the living room, a pillow drawn up to his chest and a roll of pepper leaf between his teeth, pretending to ignore them both. Sleep, of course, was out of the question.
     I tried to pass the time with a letter to Julie, despite having almost nothing new to tell her. The result was both creative and lame:

Dear Julie,

Weather’s been bad, so I’m writing you this fine piece of prose. Nothing really new down here, except that Theia trimmed her brothers’ hair yesterday, so now Hruhen’s got this kind of shag thing going on and Llumo’s running around with a half buzz. Pretty hysterical, actually—though I guess I’m not one to talk. They’ve been making me keep up with the Vitamin D lately because Psycho Shaman-Doc says I’ve been looking really pale….shit, maybe I’ll get rickets. I’ve never had rickets before; wonder what it’s like.

Once upon a time there was a girl, and she stood out in the sun for so long that all her flesh melted away. And the sun, he was so ashamed of staring at her like that, that he covered his eyes and turned away, and left her skeleton to crumble in the shadows.

In other news, our new neighbors are assholes. They’re banging on the wall right now, trying to get Llumo to stop making noise. I mean, damn. He could be dying or something, you know? Suffering torment at the hands of his loving household. Or something. And all they care about is making him shut up. Like I said, complete assholes.

Zhi verei urshila zhi maiv—ent t,se daŧhyel hara keil yeb flins—t,san sheils nacran ha t,san ilns.

And no, just because a guy feels like waxing poetical doesn’t mean he’s depressed. You, of all people, should know better than to accuse me of that.

Do a hula for me,
Matt

"But...if sound doesn't travel in space vacuum, how did the Death Star make that lovely KA-BOOM sound when it exploded?"

"But...if humans and elves are really so differentiated in lineage as they claim, how are they capable of producing viable offspring when they interbreed?"

"But...if we've already expressed a firefly gene within a tomato plant, why can't we develop a small houseplant that can serve as a nightlight as well as an aesthetically pleasing growing thing?"

"But...if aliens really have been visiting our planet and abducting people for their sick experiments, why hasn't anyone come back with an implant that allows them to psychically communicate with hamsters?"

"But...if all he had were fins, how did he manage to pluck the magical pinecone from the magical aquatic pine tree?"

Well...yes. See, this is how it happened.

A long time ago, long before Trinity was capable of distinguishing between good animation and absolute crap, Trinity's parents took her to see the My Little Pony movie, which by all accounts enthralled her to the point that she broke into tears when it was over. Now, nearly two decades later, she suddenly makes a startling discovery during a light romp through Borders.

My Little Pony the Movie is now on DVD.

So of course I bought it. Of course I bought it. What's more, Anna and I decided to watch it a few hours after we finished our Lord of the Rings marathon. It was a difficult decision, though. We knew we were in for a whole lot viscous, gooey joy, and we knew well that we were about to be inundated by Cute.

What we didn't realize, however, was that the plot devices of My Little Pony run almost parallel to those of LotR.

First of all, there's the witch Hydia. She basically hates the Pony kingdom with all her might, and is planning to obliterate it (i.e. cover the land with a second darkness) with this cute little weapon she calls the Smooze. The Smooze here being this sort of violently purple animate goo that is manufactured in her volcano home (a.k.a. Mount Doom) and allowed to run rampant over the land before ultimately solidifying into something with the effective consistency of plaque. The Ponies, being the self-centered anglo society that they are, don't take much notice of the witch's plans until the Smooze comes down and forms a lovely purple shell directly on top of Dream Castle (a.k.a. Osgiliath).

So of course, the Ponies are terrified. And of course, a small group of them sets off to pick up Megan and her siblings from the human world. This is because Megan (a.k.a. Aragorn) happens to be the keeper of the Rainbow of Light (a.k.a. Anduril), which the Ponies believe will have a chance of stopping the Smooze.

This is before the Smooze grabs the Rainbow of Light by its pretty little tail and smashes it down into its purple depths.

So the Ponies set out on a quest. This is where the lines get a little fuzzy. The Ponies are searching for a magical, elvish-type society called the Flutter Ponies, who are apparently capable of stopping the smooze. We don't know how, of course. All we know is that the road is a dangerous one. The Ponies and their human companions are respectively pursued by Smooze en route through the Giant Sunflowers (*cough cough Moria cough*) and then attacked by branch-hurling trees in Shadow Forest. And then, just as they find themselves approaching the borders of Flutter Valley, they get attacked by -- yes -- a big-ass spider. Coincidence? I think not.

Meanwhile, one of the Pony characters from earlier in the movie, who ran away from home after being reprimanded, has traveled with her loyal friend Spike (a baby dragon; he never actually grows up throughout the whole damn series) through a maze of tunnels and rivers, trying to find her way back home. Her name is Lickety-Split. She is whiny (in a musical way), self-absorbed, and a severe pessimist. In other words, Frodo.

Anyway, Lickety-Split and Spike have already managed to reach Flutter Valley by the time the rest of the gang gets there. At this point we get a tearful reunion, followed by council with the Queen of the Flutter Ponies, a snooty bitch (Lady of Light) named Rose Dust, who takes a lot of convincing before she's willing to send out the troops. She does send them out, though, and we soon come to wonder why it took her so long to make up her mind, because the Flutter Ponies make cleaning up the Smooze look almost as fun as an OxyClean commercial. There's this whole scene of them charging down from the sky just as the Smooze is about to overrun the Ponies' new home, Paradise Estate (a.k.a. Minas Tirith), and then flapping their little butterfly wings at it, which apparently kicks up a glittery gale strong enough to wipe out half the Gulf Coast.

The Smooze, of course, doesn't stand a chance. It gets shunted around and sucked up, vacuum-like, and ultimately dumped back into Hydia's volcano (from whence it came). The Ponies celebrate. Megan and Co. go home. Everyone breaks into song. And the audience learns a valuable lesson about impulsive shopping. THE END.

You know, I'd really like to be making a long-winded, existential-type entry right about now. Really, I would. So why am I not? Because LiveJournal is pissing me off right now, that's why. Because I still haven't figured out how to beat it into perfect submission. Details: I can't seem to jump instantly (we're talking ONE button here, people) from one Friend's journal to another -- not without a whole prelude of button-pushing and song and dance and even a little bit of pleading. And damn it, that's pretty annoying.

Incidentally, to those of you who HAVE discovered the wonderous secret of making LiveJournal perform this apparently much-too-difficult task...I'd like to hear from you.