The Hobbit

I cannot wait until The Hobbit comes out in theaters!!  It comes out in 2010!!  If you're like me, and can't wait, here's a fan-made trailer for it.  (Can you tell I really like it now that I can put movies in??) I couldn't decide which I liked best, so I put them both in.  Note:  These are fan-made, as you'll notice because the release dates are completely messed up.

Bad Blogger

I've been a bad blogger.  I haven't blogged recently.  So, I'll post something.  First, DID YOU KNOW???????  That Evan......... sleeps....... with....... his...... SOCKS ON!!!!!!  People don't understand me.  Aliens don't understand me.  Elves don't understand me.  Only the Dwarves are my friends.  (They sleep with those big boots on.)  Uh-oh.  I think I just called all my friends Dwarves.  Sorry folks!  Even though most of you are shorter than me.  (Tee-hee.)   Here's a cool trailer for Prince Caspian! I've seen the other one too, and I think this one's a lot better.

Bugs

Weel, tooday ah've deesayeded too tawk lahk dees ahl day.  No, not really.  Earlier today though, I had quite the run-in.  So, I was sitting around, when suddenly, the fair maiden rushes in, shrieking for help.  "Help, help!  The evil warlords Wasp and Bee are in my palace!"  So, I rolled up my weapon, flicked it around a couple times so it looks cool, and charged into the palace.  Wasp was easy to subdue, a couple of stiff blows turned him into a twitching mass of legs.  Bee was harder to deal with, and it was not until a couple minutes later, that I had destroyed his quickly moving body.  This puts in mind an incident at our cabin.  So, we arrive there, and sleep there one night.  Then, the people who slept in the "littler" room, remarked they'd seen a bug in their room.  So, the whole family tramps in, and sure enough, there's five or six of the little buggers, crawling around the ceiling.  They looked a lot like winged ants, and being the inventive sort that we are, we immediately dubbed them "winged ants".  My mom decides someone had better get rid of them, so she gets the vacuum, unhooks the hose, and looking uncommonly like Indiana Jones, she starts to suck 'em up.  It only took a moment, and my mom gets down, and starts to put the vacuum away again, but then she sees that there's another five or six on the ceiling.  She gets up, and sucks them up again.  Then, one of us spectators remarks that there's a hole in the ceiling.  And, my mom, being the brave sort, sticks the hose right up to the hole, holds it there a few seconds, and then takes it away.  The best way to illustrate what happened next is by something you've probably all seen.  You know in Fellowship of the Ring, that shot where Frodo or someone looks up at the ceiling in Moria and all these Goblins start broiling out of a hole and climbing down the pillars?  That's about it.  In moments, the entire brood of "winged ants" was on the ceiling, the more adventuresome ones dropping onto the floor.  My mom, standing on the bed, and no doubt struggling to suppress the gag reflex, begins to suck them up.  But more came.  And more.  And more.  And more.  It was half an hour or more before they were all in.  Even the Queen joined the party, a big fat bug, upon seeing whom, my mom gave an ejaculation of disgust (Oh YUCK!!) and promptly sucked it into the bag.  When we were done, the bag was humming like a platoon of humming army men was trapped in it.  And to this day, if the cabin is quiet, and the vacuum situated right... you can still hear it humming.    And that... is the Legend of the Winged Ants.     

Woo-hoo, my longest post yet!!! 

An Alarm, and a Concert

Well.  This morning, I had quite the adventure.  My sister and Mom are going to Florida, so I was left alone in the house while everyone else went to take them to the airport.  So there I was, reading my Bible, when I suddenly hear a shrill beeping noise.  So I think, "What on earth is that beeping noise?"  Then, being the clever, debonair, safety-minded person that I am, it suddenly comes to me.  "Oh my word, that's the carbon monoxide warning."  So, I leap up, grab the phone, grab the dog and dash outside.  I called my dad and told him what happened.  Then, he figures out it was his pagers, calling him simultaneously.  I hate pagers.  I mean loathe.  So after my heart rate dropped again, I went back inside.  Then, I gave my first ever bagpipe concert!  Granted, the birds were inattentive and chattered the whole time, and the dogs barked like crazy, but it was still a concert, given from my back porch.  Of course, I did the whole thing in earplugs, but when it was done, I wondered what it sounded like without the earplugs.  I quickly understood why earplugs are advised.  My word, it echoed!  The whole forest seemed to ring with wild skirling of the bagpipe, bellowing out the pibroch of war!  O.K., there's my sentence that sounds like it came from a book.  Which it did.  My book.  I bet you didn't know there are bagpipes in Middle-Earth.  It's true though!

Raymond Smullyan and Logic

I am posting now on Raymond Smullyan, who most of you have probably never heard of.  However, in my opinion, he is one of the most brilliant people in our age.  He is 88-89, and is a logician.   He has written numerous books, all using recreational logic in puzzles.  Many of his puzzles involve Knights, who always tell the truth, and Knaves, who always lie.  Each will make a statement about the other, or the other's statement, or both, which allows you to figure out who's a Knight, and who's a Knave.  He is famous for having created "The hardest logic puzzle ever".  In the land in which it is set, there are humans and vampires.  Sane humans and insane vampires always tell the truth, while insane humans and sane vampires always lie.  In addition, each uses a word ("da" or "bal") for yes or no, but you don't know which is which.  You need to figure out which is yes and which is no, and whether the speaker is a sane or insane human, or a sane or insane vampire.  I highly enjoy his books (even though I never solved the hardest logic puzzle ever) and hope you will look in your library system for some of them as well.

Stephen R. Lawhead

I thought I'd do a post on Stephen R. Lawhead.  He is one of my favorite authors and writes many good books.  He has written The Dragon King Trilogy, The Pendragon Cycle, Empyrion, Dream Thief, The King Raven Trilogy, Song of Albion, The Celtic Crusades and Byzantium.  These are all very well written, though you might want to avoid Byzantium because of some "adult" elements.  I have read (or started to read) all of these books, and I enjoy them very much.  Almost all of his books are highly Celt-focused, with King Arthur (The Pendragon Cycle) and Robin Hood (King Raven Trilogy) are set rather earlier in history then most people think of them.  I haven't finished either of his sci-fi books (Empyrion and Dream Thief), but they were good so far as I read.  Another good book is The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells, who once said, "Poets have been strangely silent on the subject of cheese."  I'll post more later, but now I have to go shovel rock.  Yippee. :(   Ah, well, anything for Mom.

Another Idea!

Ooh! Ooh!  I just had another idea.  I'll write a book about the Battle of Teutoberg Forest, where the Germans destroyed three legions of Romans.  I'll call it Arminius, after the German commander.  Now all my books will be historical fiction.  (O.K. maybe not.) I'll be the next G.A. Henty!  You can all call me E.T. Johnson!