22 December 2006

What Child is This?

I know I posted already today, but I was bored. And I know you guys like it when I post, and Robyn suggested What Child is This...so I thought - why not? Actually it should be What Children are These, but as long as it works. The Children spoken of are currently in bed - all of them - because they're all sick to some degree except me. Our house doesn't seem to be able to escape it, and we're all hoping we recover to some degree before Christmas. Anyway, it's a weird feeling, to be up all by myself.

Today I spent putting ribbons on presents. It was fun, and I discovered just how many are from my grandma in Kamloops - probably ten or eleven. She usually sends money, about sixty dollars for each of us, which adds up to $300, so I guess Mom just got us a whole whack of family gifts this year instead of dividing it among us. I like it this way. I also have this weird-shaped one that I think might be from Best Buy, because when we were driving home from seeing Eragon there were bags from Best Buy in the back seat and Mom told me not to look in them. I wonder what it is, though? I'm not a really electronics person...besides the computer, of course...

Today was also the second day in a row that felt like Saturday, and seeing as tomorrow IS Saturday, I'm assuming it'll feel like it too.

Oh! And I was surfing YouTube, which I do occasionally, and found an eight-minute long clip of DMC. It's the Liar's Dice scene, along with the bits where Will steals the key from Davy Jones (a nail-biting two minutes if I've ever seen it) and tells Bootstrap Bill he'll come back and save him. Will's my favorite. I also found a critique of DMC by the host of Ask A Ninja, a very odd little video but also very funny. Kyle likes these. So if you want to watch it, it's -
  • here

  • Pretty hilarious, no matter how much he makes fun of it. "If you've never met Keira Knightley, she's a slightly more mannish version of Orlando Bloom." (I disagree, but still funny!)

    ~Sil

    P.S. An oh my goodness, have there ever been great commercials on TV lately! Every time I walk down it's a commercial for the CBC showing of Return of the King or Curse of the Black Pearl, and occasionally Eragon gets in there too.

    I've run out of ideas...

    But feel free to suggest a Christmas carol I could have used for this post!

    I've discovered I really like wrapping presents. Especially when there's lots of different types of paper and ribbons and stuff, it's quite fun. So I wrapped all my brother's birthday presents today, and all the ones I bought for various people yesterday. Anyway, if any of you ever want your presents wrapped, I'm here.

    According to my sister it's Christmas Eve Eve Eve today, so Merry Christmas Eve Eve Eve to everybody, and thank you for your comments on my song. I did win second place, out of five, and my award looks like this:

    Pretty cool, eh?

    ~Sil

    21 December 2006

    Feliz Navidad

    I was just playing that on the piano. Interesting song. "We wish you a merry Christmas...with lots of presents to make you happy..." I mean, what kind of lyrics are those? Maybe Spanish people are just weird. Kidding.

    And as Josh reminded me, I made up a Christmas carol spoof, for a contest on Arwen-Undomiel. I think it's sort of cheesy, but here it is. It's a spoof of Jingle Bells, by the way.

    The Ring was gold and shiny
    'Twas circular and small
    Though its size was but tiny
    Its power ruled them all.

    Through many hands it passed
    Of Maia, Hobbit, Man
    When Frodo found it Gandalf said
    "Destroy it if you can!"

    Oh! The wizard went, by Valar sent
    The dwarf and two men too
    The hobbits tagged along behind
    With the elf of old, it's true - yrch!

    The Fellowship, the banded Nine
    They traveled many lands
    They strayed not from the narrow edge
    With Fate held in their hands!

    Through ancient Moria of stone
    The party made their path
    They exited there minus one -
    While the Balrog had a bath!

    The Steward's son, of Gondor
    Was noble, tall and brave
    The Uruk-hai, they shot him down -
    Sent to a watery grave!

    Oh! Seven split, bit by bit
    Now Gollum has a part
    Their journeys long, not in this song
    In a book now called great art

    Sauron died, Gollum tried
    To bite off Frodo's hand
    He only got his finger, though
    Now Elessar ruled the land!

    I don't think I'll win, though I may place - there were five entries, and currently the scoring is like this:
    Johnny's Fan - 15 points
    Me (Meldawen) - 12 points
    Nurrantiel - 11 points
    Kelenloth - 8 points
    Drew's Destiny - 4 points

    Johnny's Fan deserves to win, hers are hilarious. You can see all the entries -
  • here


  • And I went to see Eragon last night. It was way better than I expected. The best characters were Brom and Eragon, and Arya was also better than I thought she would be. In the book she's supposed to have black hair and they made her strawberry blonde, which was weird, but she was quite good except for a few lines that I thought didn't really fit her character. Murtagh was very good but he didn't get enough screen time, Angela was horrible, Durza was arguably the best of the bunch and Galbatorix was a little odd. Altogether I REALLY enjoyed it, though. Saphira (the dragon, for the uninitiated) was amazing, you totally forgot that she was almost completely computerized, and her character was exactly right. I wish it had been longer, though - too many important things were cut.

    ~Sil

    19 December 2006

    My bad

    I abandoned you all for a week, I'm sorry! It might have been longer, except Robyn started posting again and then my insanely competitive side decided that I couldn't have this. So in a weird sort of way, thanks Robyn!

    Let me see...what's been happening...oh, I had my band concert, which went well. I didn't make any really glaring errors, which was good. The little kids were so cute! The one little clarinet kept squeaking. Anyway, I discovered that our first trumpet, Scott, is a LotR geek, and I explained to him how Feanor is an idiot because he hadn't read the Silmarillion. We talked about Dead Man's Chest, too. All the band people agree that it has to be Will and Elizabeth.

    I also got all my Christmas shopping done, and I got to do some of it with Erin rather than by myself. So thank you for going with me, Erin, even though I'm pretty sure you don't read this. Oh, shoot, I was supposed to phone you today! And I'm babysitting tonight. Darn.

    Another highlight of my week was the youth Christmas banquet, and I wore my twirly black skirt and a really pretty shirt we got at Designer Depot - sort of raspberry-colored with sequins. My shoes matched very nicely, too. We did a white elephant gift exchange - and Josh gave me Dutch Blitz for Christmas! THANK YOU JOSH! We've been playing it nonstop since friday. Right now Mom is playing with the kids up in the kitchen.

    Ah yes, and my theory exam. It's been a week and three days since that. I can't remember whether I posted about it or not. Anyway, it went well, and I couldn't remember whether Allegretto was a little slower than Allegro or a little faster, and I put a little slower, which was good, because it was. So I'm hoping I get a pretty high mark on that.

    ~Sil

    EDIT: On my gosh I can't believe I forgot - I'm going to see Eragon tomorrow! With Loree and Amilynn! I'm so excited, even though it doesn't look like it's a really good movie. Arya SUCKS and Eragon himself isn't that good. But that's not the point. I'm still really excited.

    ~Sil (for real)

    11 December 2006

    Chestnuts hot dogs roasting on an open fire

    We had hot dogs roasted in front of our fireplace for dinner last night. I like it much better than outside, it's not cold and you don't have to worry about sparks jumping out onto your clothes. I'm sort of wimpy that way.

    Anyway, I know I haven't posted since six days ago - I just wasn't in the mood, I guess. Saturday was busy, I had a piano recital and then my theory exam and then an event for Mike in the evening. I think he'll be back from Ottawa for the next couple of weeks or so. This is our last week of school before the holidays, and last week of quizzing before two weeks of review, which is good. I got an outfit for the youth Christmas banquet - it's really pretty, I can't wait to wear it. It actually looks as though I'm not in much of a posting mood now either...so maybe tomorrow...

    ~Sil

    05 December 2006

    We Three Kings

    And here's a picture of them from The Nativity Story (New Line Cinema) which came out this month, I think:

    It's got Keisha Castle-Hughes as Mary, and (let me figure out how to spell it) Shohreh Aghdashloo as Joseph. No, my bad, that's Elizabeth. Oscar Isaac is Joseph.
    The reviewers have not been particularly kind so far. The one that jumped out at me from the site I'm looking at (www.rottentomatoes.com/m/nativity_story) were "An effective pitch for Christianity as the dullest religion ever" - Las Vegas Weekly. And as I scroll down, desperately trying to find a halfway positive review from anywhere...anywhere at all...ah, here we go: "At a time when secular celebrations, including most films, have redefined the holiday as a meaningless and generic act of consumerism, 'The Nativity Story" reclaims its roots as a story of sacrifice and celebration.'" - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. I've never heard of them either. Okay, so it's not a really ringing endorsement about the movie itself, but it was really the best that was there.

    Everybody except me and my brother went to Shrek Saves Christmas last night, the Telus (Dad's job) Christmas play for kids. They got gift bags with water bottles and little Gund monkeys in them, and I stole one (I don't know which parent it belonged to, but I don't think they'll be missing it) and it is now wrapped around the lamp on my bedside table. They've got magnetic hands and feet, and the lamp is metal, so it works well.

    What's today, December 5? So that means 10 more days until Eragon! And while we're at it, 170 days until PotC: AWE and 20 more days until Christmas.

    ~Sil

    04 December 2006

    O come, all ye faithful...

    Our church went out to Camp Nakamun yesterday, for the afternoon and evening. It was fun - I didn't actually do much besides play a few games (and it's maddening to try and play game with more than three people - everybody always runs off in every direction and then three turns in they decide they're bored and they want to go swimming) but it was still fun. There's a swimming pool there, and sometimes we skate but the lake wasn't frozen enough this year, and we sang carols after supper, which I always like. Mr Chute was sort of directing it, which meant that he tried to get kids/youth to come up and sing with him. Nobody did (they were all chickens) except me and Carissa and a little girl, Molly. I did God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen. I was so tired by the time we drove home, but I had Pirates on the discman and I hijacked Dad's Blackberry. It takes a long time to do anything on Arwen-Undomiel with the Blackberry so I think I spent about an hour doing that.

    The reason I was tired...I babysat until 1:30 am Saturday evening. I snacked, and read my book, and did some quizzing, but by the time midnight hit I was pretty tired, so I basically kept myself awake after that. I'm not sure how. I did get paid pretty well, though.

    So, my brother is sick today....which means everybody's had it, I think, except me and my dad. Hopefully I don't catch it.

    Edited to add: Oh, and as an aside, I happen to have won a contest today. It was a poetry contest on Arwen-Undomiel (see the link on the right side of the page) and actually, the poem was written for a different contest which is currently being judged but that I'm hoping to place in as well. It was a sonnet contest, which is why the poem is structured the way it is. Anyway, I thought I'd post it. It's about Lothlorien.

    Where once hobbit feet had trod
    Under the fading mallorn's golden leaves
    From journey over land abroad
    They stopped for briefest of reprieves.

    Where once a dwarven axe had rested
    In soaring Elven city bright
    Minds and hearts and souls arrested
    A refuge still from Lands of Night.

    Where now leaves fall into the water
    Ripples spreading outward still
    What could be called fair Valinor's daughter
    Lothlorien, the Elven realm tranquil.

    Still here in Lorien, lingering in silent praise
    Still here are wistful memories of better, brighter days.

    ~Sil

    01 December 2006

    Deck the halls with boughs of holly...

    Fa la la la la, la la la la. And so on. Yeah, I'm thinking I'm gonna have a Christmas carol title every day from now until Christmas. It seems fitting. Anyway, the reason for that one is that we have (sigh) gotten a tree, and it's set up in the living room. It's a fake tree, which I lobby hard against every year, but this year it didn't work. I guess it's an okay fake tree, not bad or anything. It's perfectly conically-shaped, and pre-lit, which I guess is a good thing, even though I like putting lights on.

    I'm actually in a pretty good mood right now - I didn't wake up sick this morning! I was scared I was going to, and that would be bad, because I have Festival of Trees today and I really didn't want to miss it. Even though I am kinda nervous. There's also youth tonight and I do really want to go, if only to see my brother get duct-taped to the wall. I think it's kind of funny how the smallest three people in our youth group are all guys, though I guess it's not unusual.

    Oh, and I can't get sick tomorrow either, because I have a babysitting job, and they have a big TV and all three LotR, and so I can't miss it! Oh, and the kids are good too. And not Sunday, because I don't want to miss quiz practice, but Monday would be okay. Listen to me, scheduling when I can get sick...

    ~Sil