My Next Valiant Attempt At Tech-Savviness

...Which is likely doomed to horrible failure, I know.

But Dr. Brewton said to learn how to hotlink images on our blogs, so that when you click on it, instead of just showing a larger image of the picture, it leads you directly to the source where you found it. A laudable effort, indeed, but one that has (so far) been beyond me.

So I did what our internet culture directs us to do in such terrible extremeties. I googled it.

And I came up with a YouTube video showing directions. Here goes!

http://heirsofdurin.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/hbt-vfx-012.jpg

Nope.

Well, a picture appeared...

...And it's clickable, but it only leads to the image itself, not to the page as a whole. Well, I have no idea what to do now. Grr.

Dr. Brewton, you're just going to have to show me how to do it if you want me to do it. Because I give up.

In Pace Christi,

Elyse

True Story

So, I gave up Fanfiction.net and Tumblr for Lent. In theory, this would keep me more off the Internet and would force me to actually work on my own stories.

In practice, I have simply moved on to Pinterest.

On the plus side, I am finding lots of nice Hobbit stuff...

In Pace Christi,

Elyse

Keep Calm And Go On An Adventure

Why not, after all? You never know what you'll find when you step out of your door. If you're not careful, it'll sweep you off your feet, and take you to the Lonely Mountain, or places even further away.

In Pace Christi,

Elyse

P.S. Just remember to bring your handkerchief. Bilbo didn't.

What Happens When You Try To Study...

...Inevitably, someone distracts you with bacon. Or some other pig-related topic. Certainly happens around here.

That's Balin in the background, with mohawk!Dwalin and Thorin in the foreground. I don't have the author's name recorded, unfortunately. I've heard there's a way to search for it on Google Images, but you know how terrible I am with technology...

In Pace Christi,

Elyse

Grr

Why am I upset, you ask?

I am a follower of many fandoms. The one ruling my life at the moment is Tolkien-centered, of course, but that does not mean I am not aware of various other fandoms. Sometimes, however, they get pushed to the backburner and I only check up on them every few months. In the case of series that have ended, this is not a problem.

And, no, my problem currently is not that Rick Riordan is only releasing his Percy Jackson/Carter Kane crossover short story in audiobook, e-book, and with the paperback Serpent's Shadow release. (Although I was upset about that, too.) After all, I can just go to Books-a-Million when the paperback is released and read it there (I am not buying that book over again) before getting another LEGO Hobbit set. It's sad when I go to a bookstore to buy LEGOs.

No, it's the Green Lantern: The Animated Series.

Spoilers for anyone who follows it as well!

First they made Razer confess that he loved Aya as she 'died', then they brought her back and had Razer backpedal, and THEN they had her delete her emotions, kill the Anti-Monitor, and become Queen of the Manhunters!!!!

GAH!

I mean, how can you DO that? One of the most beautiful, natural ships (never mind that she's a robot) and you RUIN IT! By turning her evil! Razer was getting so much better about this! Granted, I know that was a horrible moment to freak out about a relationship after the unfortunate end of his last one, but he'd been getting so much better! And then THIS happened! And there's only a few episodes left before Cartoon Network axes it!

GRR!

This is usually the point when I would go to Fanfiction.net to assuage my feels, but I can't do that, seeing as how I gave up FF.net and lurking on Tumblr for Lent. So I'm stuck blogging about my feels.

I think it is an appropriate moment to use this gif:

And, no, I do not feel melodramatic in the least.

Of course, it's not helping that I'm watching Hobbit tribute videos and that sort of thing. I tend to get emotional when I do that. For that matter, I teared myself up the other day playing "In Dreams" from the end of The Fellowship of the Ring on the piano the other day. The song becomes much more poignant when you think about all of the inhabitants of Middle-earth that die, from the wars of the First Age in Beleriand to the ending of the War of the Ring.

I'd post a fanart here to explain precisely how I feel, but it'd have spoilers. GAH.

I NEED TO STOP DOING THIS TO MYSELF!!

In Pace Christi,

Elyse

Brace Yourselves, Randomness Is Coming

Again, 'nuff said. Also, do I need to submit any more evidence of why I love Catholic Memes?

I also love how they used to classify memes with this picture as "LOTR", even though that's not Boromir. It's Sean Bean, sure, but it's not Boromir. Okay, he looks much the same, fur and cape and huge sword and all, but it's not The Lord of the Rings, it's Game of Thrones. Now they've pulled their act together and they're just calling it the 'Brace Yourselves' meme.

Hey, it works.

Ooh, while I'm inundating everyone with memes, I should add another of my favorites:

Okay, Dr. Brewton told us today to hotlink any pictures so that anyone clicking on them will be led back to their source. That is a great idea. In fact, I would whole-heartedly endorse doing so... IF I COULD FIGURE OUT HOW TO DO IT!! C'mon, Dr. Brewton, why didn't you demonstrate it for the technologically challenged? We may be an increasingly small minority among college students, but we exist! And we're being discriminated against!

DISCRIMINATION!!!

So I just finished up a blog post about Voltaire and Rousseau and feel like more bashing of philosophical pedestals. Anyone want to join in? Rousseau was Wangsty and Voltaire just an all-out skeptic. Skewed philosophies tend to take one thing to an extreme to the detriment of its opposite (which will be seized on by the following generation and correspondingly taken to its extreme). The mess might all be due to Occam, who decreed in his Razor that ALL THINGS MUST BE SIMPLIFIED! The problem is that sometimes crucial parts are cut out to make way for simplification.

*my mental daydream*

Elrond: Occam, cast the Razor into the fire! Destroy it!

Occam/Isildur: No.

Elrond: All righty, then. *shove*

*end mental daydream*

That would make an interesting philosophical paper to turn into a teacher... It's a good thing I'm not taking philosophy, isn't it?

I'd also like to take a moment and randomly spork the extreme American obsession with democracy. Why do we always think that we have the most perfect form of government (which we may or may not have)? More importantly, why do we always think that whoever does not have our form of government are benighted heathens, who we must invade and teach the error of their ways? I mean, Woodrow Wilson (who was a nutcase who suffered a mental breakdown because of his refusal to face reality... not my words, actually. It was Sigmund Freud who said that!!!!) said famously, "The world must be made safe for democracy!" And so he got us pointlessly embroiled in WWI and achieved... what? Nothing.

Really. WWII I can see. We were attacked, and even if we hadn't been, Hitler needed to be taken down. However, WWII was born of WWI. Japan joined the Axis because Britain snubbed them (they were our allies in WWI), so thumbs down for Britain. Also, thumbs down for their appeasement policy towards Hitler. And what was with the bashing of German for WWI? It was Austria-Hungary that invaded Serbia, and that spiraled out of control because Russia jumped to the aid of Serbia and Germany felt honor-bound to aid Austria-Hungary. France and England jumped in for whatever reason, and there was no legitimate reason for the war. The Pope pleaded for peace talks repeatedly, but everyone ignored him until Charles of Austria. And even he was ignored, stripped of his empire, and reduced to dying shortly thereafter in exile.

The cause for his beatification is under way, which is nice. (Translation: he may one day become a saint.)

Back to Woodrow Wilson. The Lusitania is always cited as proof that the Kaiser's Germany was evil and out to take over the world. Did you know that Germany took out ads in the papers saying that they were going to torpedo the ship (it was carrying munitions, although this was officially denied) and warning people not to travel on it? Yep. Oh, and it was in a war zone. And here we have the deranged Woodrow Wilson insisting that idiot Americans have the right to travel on ships carrying munitions in a legitimate sphere of war and not be harmed, even though they are stupidly throwing themselves into the line of fire.

Yeah. Woodrow Wilson was so nuts, I can't even wrap my mind around it.

And then he decided that Europe needed 'self-determinism'. This is another barrel of laughs, if you're into black humor. This basically says that every minority group has the right to self-governance. It sounds fine... until you realize that every tiny minority in Europe wanted its own country. So you had Austria-Hungary split up, Germany carved up, Poland reappearing on the map, the Balkans rearranging themselves like nuts... And if they didn't get what they want, they just started fighting. No one was happy with the result. Further minorities decided they wanted to rebel as well. It just became complete chaos.

And so the road was paved for Hitler to step into the breach, bringing some sort of twisted order out of chaos and giving the people a purpose to fight and live for.

...I just don't have words to describe how much contempt I have for Woodrow Wilson, 'self-determinism', and, "The world must be made safe for democracy."

Do you know how badly American children are indoctrinated (unconsciously, we hope...) to believe that democracy is the only good method of governing? When I read The Chronicles of Narnia for the first time and read how Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy became kings and queens of Narnia at the end, I had a knee-jerk reaction: "Kings and queens? But that's wrong! Kings are all evil, like George III! They're supposed to have elections and stuff."

Behold, the wonders of modern education.

Also, I have the hardest time not typing 'demoncracy'.

In Pace Christi,

Elyse

'Nuff Said.

Dwarves in a Dinghy

This is a gif from the production vlogs. Why did I put it on my blog, you ask?

I say: WHY DO I NEED A REASON?

It's Dwarves! In a boat! Waving at the camera! There is NO earthly reason why it does NOT belong on my blog!

P.S. Fili is on the dinghy, too.

(Left from right: Nori, Fili, Bifur, Dwalin, Dori, and Gloin. Yes, I can recognize them all even in their water-logged, disheveled state. I have no life whatsoever.)

In Pace Christi,

Elyse

A Pathetic Update on My Boring Life

My life is boring, yes. It is probably better off that way. It's very uncomplicated and not troublesome. (Un-troublesome? Is that a word? It should be a word.)

So, not much happens in my world. Unless you count cookies. I had cookies today. Sugar cookies from the Guillot. They were good.

I also had no calculus homework today. I did it all yesterday. I was panicking when I saw something like "comp b a," nothing remotely similar to which had we gone over in class. So I found it in the lesson, was vastly relieved, and completed the problems. I figured we'd start 14.4 in class today. Nope. We finished up 14.3. So no new homework was assigned.

I was very happy about that. The cookies helped improve my mood. Cookies solve all your problems - except weight loss.

The other week a guy was sitting with his skateboard outside a classroom at the math building. He was sitting under a sign that read, NO SKATEBOARDING. The incongruity was unforgettable.

The other day in history Dr. Makowski quoted from Von Kriege, or 'On War', by a certain Karl von Clausewite (whom I have never heard of before), who basically said that 'war is diplomacy with different means'. DOES THAT MEAN ANAKIIN SKYWALKER WAS CORRECT WHEN HE CALLED IT AGGRESSIVE NEGOTIATIONS???? XD

Sorry. I totally had to add this, from Catholic Memes. They are doing a great job of spreading orthodoxy by using humor. Now, very few people will get the joke about this one, but those who do will probably, like me, be struck with the sudden fear that the Capuchins are secretly Jedi Knights. Something to think about the next time we're all fidgeting through Father's sermon...

...And so I totally had to add this one as well. Only Catholics will get this one without an explanation... Whenever a priest says, "The Lord be with you," the congregation used to respond: "And also with you." However, with the revised Mass translations from the Latin, the proper response is: "And with your spirit."

The new translations made me very happy, actually, although inevitably there were those people seeking an excuse to leave the Church and/or those who just like to grumble. I liked the new translations because they are more accurate- seeing as how I have found the words of the Latin Mass and could see the discrepancies! Apparently, whoever translated it the first time (1) didn't care (2) deliberately changed stuff to make it more 'relevant' or (3) was in a big hurry.

Let's hope it was (3).

But now the translations are accurate and that makes me so happy!

Even if I still can't get through the new Nicene Creed without looking at a card or in the missalette. If I don't look at one, I will inevitably mess up. And since I'm rather loud, my mistake will be noticeable. Therefore, it is imperative for me to look at the card or in the missalette.

Now, I can say it in Latin just fine, no mistakes, but in English I start going off into weird territory and finish off with the Apostle's Creed instead of the Nicene...

Catholic problems. There's a meme for that, too.

In Pace Christi,

Elyse

A Warning

One of these days, I will suddenly snap and start slapping anyone and everyone who swears in my presence.

Just warning you all.

In Pace Christi,

Elyse