Happy Mother’s Day

…’Cause lemme tell ya, life is just SO much more manageable with these puppies…  I don’t understand why when this kind of chemical technology exists that they’re not just pumpin’ it right into the water supply.

–Iris, extolling the virtues of prescription anti-anxiety medication

Surety

Ace:  (unleashes barrage at hostile plant in Metroid Prime)

Jack:  He’s dead.  He’s dead!

Ace:  (switches to Thermal Visor) Not until he’s cold and dead.  (pumps bullets into the fading heat signature)

The Eternal Question

“Were the eight coins worth my death?”

–me, after completing a timed objective and then biting it for the 400th time while playing the New Super Mario Brothers Wii

Culture Shock

“In the Golden Realm, if you are walking down the street and smiling, people assume you are happy. In the City of Mists, if you are walking down the street and smiling, people assume you are insane.”

-Nickykaa, from a letter to me

Yep.

“He had always known it would end horribly.  Only the when, where, how, why, and by whom of it all had eluded him.”

–  from Juggler of Worlds (Larry Niven & Edward M. Lerner)

Mmmmm.

“…And suddenly, for no reason, she told this strange woman about her endless journeys from her mother’s tiny flat with its smell of face powder and curry from the take-away downstairs, and the tights dripping in the bathroom, to her father’s cold, tidy, solemn house with its ticking grandfather clock.  And about the silly dreams she’d had of bringing them together and the hopelessness of it all.

‘Do you think there might be a third place?  Not my father’s house or my mother’s apartment but somewhere else-  by the sea perhaps?  And that one day I might find it?’

She drew back, suddenly frightened, because the fierce aunt was looking at her far too intently.

But Aunt Etta was nodding.  ‘Of course,’ she said.  ‘Of course there is a third place.  There is one for everybody.  But it’s no good filling it up with people from your old life.  If you want to find the third place, you must find it alone.'”

—Island of the Aunts, by Eva Ibbotson

Overheard Between Two 8-Year Old Boys

Boy 1:  I’m going to Antarctica to hide.

Boy 2:  You’ll die.

Boy 1:  (thinks)  At least it’ll be a painless death.

Boy 2:  Not if a polar bear eats you.

There’s a Principle in There Somewhere

Jack (eating cereal):  When I run my tongue along the inside of my teeth, it makes it feel really weird.

Ace:  Yeah, it does.  And the more you do it and think about it, the weirder it feels.  And then you keep noticing it all the time.  So I wouldn’t think about it too hard.

Yeah, What She Said

“People find something very comforting about the notion that words are the problem, not concepts.  When words fail us, we tend to blame the words.  We’ve all experienced the frustration of not being able to say what we mean to say.  When we struggle with language, we have the sensation that our clean, beautiful ideas remain trapped inside our heads.  We accuse language of being too crude and clumsy to adequately express our thoughts.  But perhaps we flatter ourselves.

“Sometimes we do find the words to express an idea, and only then realize what a stupid idea it is.  This experience would suggest that our thoughts are not as clean and beautiful as we would like to believe.  Instead of blaming language for failing to capture our thoughts, maybe we should thank it for giving some shape to the muddle in our heads.”

-Arika Okrent, “In the Land of Invented Languages”

Best Quotes of the Weekend II

“Sometimes I try to blow things up just by using the power of my mind.”

-Jack, while entering the supermarket

—

Jack (playing Mad Libs):  I need a boy’s name.

Ace:  Fred.

J:  Fred???

A:  Yeah, Fred will work.

J:  What if there’s a girl named Fred?

A:  What are you, watching “Angel”?

—

“Over the past few years I’ve come to the realization that nothing ever changes and no one ever learns from their mistakes.”

-me, to a former coworker, in a dream I had

On This Date in 1775

…Patrick Henry proclaimed, “Give me liberty or give me death!”

Eventually, of course, he got both.

***

text of Patrick Henry’s speech

Best Quotes of the Weekend

“Dad!  Dad!  Tell them the story about the time you destroyed an entire planet! That was so awesome.”

-Jack, to me, during Taco Party Saturday

***

“Opportunity is fifty percent of dinner.”

-me, to Jack, during a discussion of predator/prey relationships

Food for Thought

“We’ve all heard that story about the coach who told each of his players to go out to the woods and bring him back a twig.  When they did, the coach took the twigs and broke one of them to show the players that individually they were weak and could be broken.  Then he bound all the twigs together and showed that he could not break them when they were bound.  This illustrated to the players that if they stuck together as a team, they were strong and no one could break them.  What they forget to tell you is that later that night, as he slept in his bed, that coach was eaten by zombies.”

–The Zen of Zombie:  Better Living Through the Undead, Scott Kenemore

Happy New Year

“‘You should see her, indeed you should, sir.  I am only a hobbit…  and I’m not much good at poetry-  not at making it:…  so I can’t tell you what I mean….  But I wish I could make a song about her.  Beautiful she is, sir!  Lovely!  Sometimes like a great tree in flower, sometimes like a white daffadowndilly, small and slender like.  Hard as di’monds, soft as moonlight.  Warm as sunlight, cold as frost in the stars.  Proud and far-off as a snow-mountain, and as merry as any lass I ever saw with daisies in her hair in springtime.  But that’s a lot o’ nonsense, and all wide of my mark.’

‘Then she must be lovely indeed,’ said Faramir.  ‘Perilously fair.’

‘I don’t know about perilous,’ said Sam….  ‘But perhaps you could call her perilous, because she’s so strong in herself.  You, you could dash yourself to pieces on her, like a ship on a rock;  or drownd yourself, like a hobbit in a river.  But neither rock nor river would be to blame.'”

Samwise describing Galadriel to Faramir, The Two Towers (J.R.R. Tolkien)

A Man May Do Both

“‘Halflings!’ laughed the rider that stood beside Eomer.  ‘Halflings!  But they are only a little people in old songs and children’s tales out of the North.  Do we walk in legends or on the green earth in the daylight?’

‘A man may do both,’ said Aragorn.  ‘For not we but those who come after will make the legends of our time.  The green earth, say you?  That is a mighty matter of legend, though you tread it under the light of day!'”

– J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers