Google Salutes Jules Verne's 183rd Birthday

Seriously, you have to go check this out.

It is the best of ingenious art used as homage. When you move the lever the image seen through the sub windows moves. If you don't move the lever, you are floating on the waves, so naturally the image bobs because the sub would be bobbing.

When Beowulf Knits Socks ...

It might look like this.

I especially like this since I am fighting off the urge to buy a book (darn that book fast) called What Would Madame Defarge Knit? (Edited by Heather Ordover at CraftLit with many original patterns based on classic books).

Thanks to Theocoid for this, who got the link from Mark Shea.

When Superheroes Play Poker

This is funny.

I laughed out loud. At work.

You have to like superheroes. And not mind a bad word.

Thanks to Rose for this one.

iPhone App Aids in Confession and Carries Imprimatur (corrected)

A new app for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch has been “developed for those who frequent the sacrament and those who wish to return” in what is the first known imprimatur to be given for an iPhone or iPad app.

I'm sure that I am late in noticing this, but a pal sent me the link, asking what I thought about it. I thought I'd post this as it is how I let Tom know about interesting Catholic news.

It actually just looks like another way to organize your thoughts more than anything.

I, myself, resist cell phones, apps, and all that. That's just a personal thing. I have so many gadgets. So I use note cards. They are easy to stack and don't need batteries.

This app looks no worse than having a printed out examination of conscience, and prompts to get through confession (which I have handwritten on a note card).

Though I do NOT write down a list of sins ... they are burned onto my mind until I talk to the priest! (So much safer that way.)

CORRECTION
The original headline said this carries a Vatican imprimatur and I had clicked around and found numerous stories from reputable sources which said that very thing. However, it turns out that they didn't really check their sources any further than I did. There is an imprimatur but it was bestowed by an American, Bishop Kevin Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend.

The place to get the real story as well as see all the ways the story was misrepresented in the news it at the always-valuable Get Religion.

In other news ... Kif and Wash got into a serious, no-holds barred fight for supremacy

This was last Friday when Hannah and I went in the back yard to frolic in the 5" snowfall with the dogs.

Playing, which always has an edge of hierarchy for dogs, turned in the blink of an eye into fighting between Wash (the Boxer) and Kif (part Staffordshire Terrier). Wash won, but that was only because Hannah hit Kif over the head with a plastic lawn chair to make him stop. She wielded it like a Valkyrie, doing this mother's heart proud, especially as I was racking my brain to think of how we could shock Kif enough to get him to stop.

Otherwise, I shudder to think what might have happened. I had Wash's collar but he kept on fighting and with Kif underneath no one could get a hand inbetween them to grab Kif's collar.

Hannah grabbed Kif and moved him across the yard.

Zoe and Zapp had been bouncing excitedly around the edges (mentally chanting, "fight, fight, fight!"). They had no doubt who "won" and immediately ran after Kif and attacked him. Luckily, they weren't as passionate and I was able to call them off with voice alone, because I couldn't let go of Wash.

Wash had multiple puncture wounds to both legs with a few bad enough to need stapling.

Kif had to have his ear sewn up in a couple of spots so the honors were about even.

The next day, we were filled with trepidation about how to have these two dogs in the same household. However, we followed the Barkbuster's lady's advice. We reintroduced them to each other in the yard where the fight broke out, with a hose ready and waiting in case of renewed trouble. But both dogs knew that Kif had disengaged first. Neither cared it was because of a lawn chair and both felt Wash had won.

So, unbelievably to me, we are now back to where we began.

Except that it seemed to clear the air in some way that we humans couldn't really see.

Wash has a new bounce in his step and a take-charge manner in the pack proper. Questions about chew bones get settled by him, he gives a sharper reprimand when the others try to push him around and he is first up for guard duties.

Kif, surprisingly, has gotten braver around me and now will look me in the eye. Crazy. But it is as if he now knows just where he belongs and feels more secure. Hannah thinks it is because in Wash he sees a strong leader.

Who knows?

Whatever the reason, we have peace and it seems to have done both dogs some mental good. It is just too bad about the wear and tear on our mental good. Not to mention the vet bills!

Gulliver's Travels, the Catholic Church, and the Meaning of Life

You never know just where the conversation is going to go when you participate in an SFFaudio podcast.

Jesse Willis (SFFaudio host), Gregg Margarite, and I all read Gulliver's Travels and then discussed it yesterday. This is a longish podcast at almost two hours, however, readers of this blog may find the discussion extra interesting since it eventually ranged all over the place with the last hour popping in and out of faith discussions.

It was a fascinating discussion to participate in and a truly wonderful example of Socratic learning (for me anyway) with a couple of folks who are willing to pursue learning wherever they find it.

Click through and have a listen.

Keeping on Track with St. Teresa: reviewing "a little daily wisdom"

St. Teresa of Avila is not a lofty, inaccessible saint; she’s a companion, and has been taking Christians on a journey through their own interior “castles” for hundreds of years. Honest, humorous, and insightful, her devotional and spiritual reflections show readers how to open up themselves to God in new ways.

This little book from Paraclete Press is true treasure. The daily quotes from St. Teresa may be tender or pithy, patient or sharp, but they have so far had something I needed to hear practically every day. Partially this is because of Bernard Bangley's accessible translations which capture Teresa's sparkling, vivid personality in naturally flowing language. Partially, though, it is because St. Teresa herself has a gift for communicating the important things we need to remember in striving to grow in our love for God.

What Teresa knew, and what Bangley has excerpted so well, is that we are easily distracted and must always be brought back to focus on the important things. Those things usually seem extremely simple when we are reading about them but are difficult to remember in the flow of everyday life. That is why it is good to have these brief excerpts to read every day so that we may ponder them and keep ourselves on the right path.

I was so impressed with this book after looking through it that I began using it every morning before prayer. It has proven very helpful and oftentimes I find Teresa's advice comes into my mind throughout the day. I have come across several entries that speak to me particularly and I will share them throughout this week in the daily quotes. Highly recommended.

First Friday Fast for an End to Abortion: February

Here's the background info and I see that I've been doing this since February 2007 which makes this my 4 year anniversary of this practice.

I had been slackening up in the last couple of months but the March for Life, as always, reminded me of just how urgent all our actions are on behalf of the unborn. There is nothing like that community, the solidarity, the common action of the body of Christ who works to save those among us who have no voices to cry out.

If you're not already fully involved in working toward this goal, I invite you to join me in a monthly day of sacrificial fasting and prayer for the unborn, the mothers and fathers who are tempted to make the mistake of abortion, those who work to end abortion and for the souls of those who have been so lied to that they work for abortion.

Reconciling the Reality of Hell and a God Who is Love

The Curt Jester calls our attention to an article called Debunking the Myth of Hell which has this basic premise.

I’m writing about hell because it is an unthinkable, horrible, destructive concept that can’t possibly be true.

My own personal comment about that is there are many people just don't have much imagination. This author seems to be one. God is so far outside our range of what could "possibly be true" that believing in anything else that goes along with Him should be a piece of cake. People who say that sort of thing just aren't trying hard enough. Or even looking into it much. More correctly, the statement should say, "I don't want to believe in it."
The first time I encountered the concept was from a high school English teacher and it affected me not at all since I cared nothing for God or Hell at the time other than to be surprised that someone would rather disappear ... that teacher's favored imagining of the punishment for not doing what one should ... than to just, well, go ahead and do what one should. She was kind of a ditzy hippy and we all knew it and that also took away all emphasis from what she was trying to "teach" that day, for me at any rate.

Anyway, The Curt Jester has his own comments which I liked very much and pithily sums up with the kicker which really sums up the concept which we should remember when faced with this statement from others.

She ends the article with the statement “God is Love.” So to reverse her question “Can a loving God force someone to Heaven who doesn’t want to be with him?

Streets as Icy as Skating Rinks Continue in Dallas

Just thought I'd catch everyone up on the weather. So it is day 3 of the big ice-in, with below freezing temperatures and a city system that is just not prepared for this sort of thing.

The mail still gets delivered (love you, U.S. Postal System!), the power is on though I have heard of some neighborhoods where they are having "rolling black outs" to help conserve power, and although we didn't have newspaper delivery yesterday, today we found two WSJs on our doorstep (yesterday's and today's).

Tom has gone to work all three days because ... I'll just say it ... he's a warrior. (Also, when you have a small business you wind up being like a farmer. No one else is going to feed those cows, right? And our clients may be unable to leave their homes but they still are asking for work to be done ... as well as the fact that we have many clients who aren't in Dallas and are asking for jobs.) I went to work on day one and then after having a series of small heart attacks over the driving conditions he drove me home at the end of the day. Because he's just that great ... yes he is!

Hannah went to work on days 1 and 2 and was one of the few people able to show up at work at the vet (where half her working days are spent as an assistant vet tech). Good thing she did because they have 18 dogs boarding and most of the people who work there live a good distance away and couldn't make it in. She showed up at 7 a.m. on the second day because she figured the 7 a.m. shift for dog walking and feeding wouldn't be there. She was right. What a good girl ... I am so proud of her for driving over icy roads to make sure the dogs were taken care of and walked.

Our own dogs are in heaven because people have been around so much of the time and they haven't had to be in their crates during the day.

Although ... we are beginning to run out of dinner-type food. We can eat sandwiches for some time but I will be venturing out to go to the store sometime soon so we can restock other sorts of supplies.

There must be more but that's all I can think of for now!

January Book Report - Part 2

Continuing the discussion of books I read in January, I see that I could also have called this the Diana Wynne Jones report. I did read quite a few of her books all at once and was entranced by this "new" author.

• Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
  I loved the movie and a friend who had been telling me how superior the book is was kind enough to lend it to me. I began glancing through it and found myself pulled in by the humorous beginning. It was written with a bit of self awareness but not so much that it ever took over the story. The story is complex and yet the author managed to keep it all clear as the story ramped up, extra characters appeared, and everyone came together at the end. (Although I was a bit confused about the two piecemeal characters until that was completely sorted out ... but perhaps that is as it should be.) Definitely better than the movie!
  
  I can't really describe the plot well except to say that Sophie's troubles all begin after an encounter with the Witch of the Waste which leaves her artificially aged to about 90. When Sophie goes out to find help she winds up at Howl's moving castle (which whirs through the countryside at an alarming pace). Those are the simplest elements but it is an entrancing book. Although Diana Wynne Jones writes for the juvenile/young adult audience her books are absorbing whatever one's age and this is one which I highly recommend.
  
  My friend then brought me several other of her family's favorite books by Jones and I enjoyed them all as you can see below.
  
  
• Dogsbody by Diana Wynne Jones
  The dogstar Sirius has been convicted of a crime and condemned to a mortal life, as a dog. He is being given a chance to find who actually committed the crime he is accused of. First, however, he must learn to navigate the world and life as a dog, beginning as a newborn puppy. This gives the author the opportunity to write about understanding the world from a canine point of view and later, as he meets some cats, from his interpretation of a feline POV as well. Sirius belongs to a gentle, nature loving girl who is much put upon by her aunt, upon whom she depends for everything.
  
  While the insights into canine understanding are well written, I was not very interested in that aspect. I was much more interested in Sirius' true nature and quest. That is understandable, however, as the book was written for juveniles and I am far past that point. That makes it all the more remarkable that this author still held  my interest in the story and characters.
  
  The last half of the book proved to pick up the pace and focus more on Sirus's attempts to achieve his goal rather than his life as a dog ... they were probably divided about evenly. I found it a most satisfying book to the point where I stayed up late to finish it.
  
  
• The Homeward Bounders by Diana Wynne Jones
  Following my reading of Dogsbody, I went on to this book in sampling Diana Wynne Jones' oeuvre. She came up with yet another completely different concept, unique world system, and set of problems to solve. As well, Jamie, the protagonist seems different from those I read about in Howl's Moving Castle and Dogsbody.
  
  Jamie has a happy enough life with his family in a poor but active neighborhood of a large city. One day, when delivering groceries for his father's store, he happens upon a building that seems unlike those he has encountered before. When looking through the windows, he sees Them (which is the only way that these persons are ever described). They seem to be playing a gigantic board game and the glimmers of overheard conversation are tantalizing. He escapes detection and seeming danger but can't resist coming back later to see more. This time They see him and turn Jamie into a discarded player in their game, where he is doomed to walk the boundaries between worlds, bouncing from one to the next in the hopes of being able to find his way back home. He is not the only discarded player and meets those somewhat familiar to us (the Wandering Jew, the Flying Dutchman) and those who definitely are not. Jamie's discoveries and struggles make for absorbing reading and a book that I couldn't put down.
  
  This is a juvenile fiction work but, aside from some plot points that are probably much more obvious to the adult reader than to the intended audience, there is enough here that one never really feels as if the book is written for a lower age group. Highly recommended.
  
  
• The Lives of Christopher Chant by Diana Wynne Jones
  For as long as he can remember Christopher could walk in his dreams through the Place Between to different valleys for visits to the different towns and people there. Sometimes, if he worked hard at it, he could even bring back some of the gifts they gave him. This led to his uncle noticing his abilities and setting a series of experiments for Christopher to do while in these worlds. As time goes by, we watch Christopher grow, go to school, and eventually discover what his true talent is and what it means to the world.
  
  I don't want to include spoilers so the above description sounds dreadfully boring and this book is anything but that. I stayed up late last night in order to finish the last thirty pages at break-neck speed. I finished and thought of the Harry Potter books, a comparison which hadn't occurred to me until that moment. I enjoyed the Harry Potter books very much, but felt that this was so much fresher and more original that I was surprised.
  
  Diana Wynne Jones has a talent for developing personalities as well as worlds and we feel that main characters have become our friends. When the Goddess expresses a heartfelt desire to go to school, we understand and want that for her too. When Christopher suddenly sees how the face he's been showing to the world is not what he thought, we feel his shock too. As with the other books I have read, the author is highly imaginative at developing new worlds and scenarios that do not seem at all derivative of any of the others that preceded it. I am curious to read more of this series to see how it is handled.
  
  
• Fire and Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones
  This is a modernization and re-imagining of the ballad of Tam Lin, a young man stolen by fairies who must be rescued by his true love. My experience with Pamela Dean's attempt to do this to a story made me leery but I should have trusted Jones from the beginning. She uses her vivid imagination to create the story of a young girl, Polly, who encounters a grown man with whom she fashions home-grown heroic adventures. (The imagining of the giant in the supermarket is particularly humorous and effective as an illustrative event.)
  
  As Polly grows up, her life is punctuated with these imaginings as well as the man's regular gifts of books shipped from anywhere he happens to be on tour in his profession as symphonic cellist. Thus, not only do we get a wonderful story, but we see Jones's idea of what books are suitable for encouraging imagination in children. As I read many of these same books when I was growing up, this was a particularly enjoyable bit of detail. It is bit of detail that becomes very important later in the book, I might add. The entire story is set in the framework of Polly as a college student, realizing with shock that she had forgotten this entire segment of her life. Thus the story is at once ongoing and a series of flashbacks. Highly recommended.

The Rite Presents God As Santa Claus

Like many films that center on the presence of the devil, the ultimate point of this production is to use the existence of the devil as proof of the presence of God. Demons are presented in fantastic, freighting ways and seem to be all powerful. Non-belief is reduced in importance because of the great evil present, and the resulting fear-based faith allows God to vanquish His enemy. This may seem correct since it sets man over God, but in actuality man’s faith is not the controlling factor in his relationship with the Almighty. God does not need man nor does He require his faith in order to act on his behalf.

This type movie, therefore, I believe, distorts the purposes of the Lord into some spiritual warfare Santa Claus.

Scott Nehring from Good News Film Reviews not only points out the problematic moral underpinning to The Rite, but also correctly skewers those who indulge in wishful thinking while reviewing the film because they are so hopeful to have a "Christian" movie taken seriously by the mainstream.

Scott also points out the many flaws inherent in the storyline in case all you were looking for was a good flick. Wow, it seems as if they really got The Rite ... wrong. Go read it all.

Good Story #3: Black Cherry Blues

This time around, Julie and Scott discuss James Lee Burke's Black Cherry Blues. This gritty story won an Edgar Award for Best Novel in 1990, and is third of Burke's Dave Robicheaux novels. The book is remarkable for its well-written prose and the emotional baggage carried by nearly every character. The setting is contemporary Louisiana and Montana.

Emotional baggage ... no kidding!

Plus there's a whole lotta confession goin' on. Not our confessions. But we talk about the sacrament,  mercy, forgiveness, and sleeping around. What can I say? It's a noir-ish story written by a Catholic author who ain't afraid to let it all hang out.

Join us at A Good Story is Hard to Find podcast for the whole thing.

Nightcrawler, one of God's cleverest tricks to interest comic lovers in the Church

Now this is a conversion story I understand and a convert whose taste I admire.

Unfortunately for my career as a Witch, I liked two things: horror novels and comic books. Both piqued my interest in the Roman Catholic Church. (Bear with me here!) Ever notice, when real evil threatens in classic horror, it's the Catholic Church that's called on to save the day? And my favorite character in the comics was Nightcrawler of the X-Men, a devout Roman Catholic. (So if you ever want proof that God can reach us through literally anything, there it is, right there. I owe the first steps of my conversion to The Exorcist, Dracula, and a fuzzy blue mutant with a German accent and a penchant for buckling swash.)

I fell in love with Nightcrawler in the X-Men movies. What Catholic wouldn't?

I'm so glad I saw Libby's name go by ... I forget where ... and then saw her new blog pop up in the stats. She doesn't have an actual first post up yet, but go by and read her conversion story!

The Smoke of Satan

So, the feeding of the five thousand wasn't a miracle. Instead the "real miracle" was that everyone shared their lunch. Everything had to be questioned and "re-interpreted" in such a way that it could be accepted and understood by modern people. So when we call Jesus Christ "God Incarnate" what we really mean was that he was so fully human that as he reached his potential as a man, he showed us what divinity looks like. When we speak of the Blessed Virgin we mean she was "a very good and holy Jewish young woman." When we speak of the "Real Presence" we mean that we see the "Christ that is within each one of us."

I hate this crap.

Me too.

Here's my two cents worth on one of the miracle debunking lines that annoys me most.

Jesus fed the 5,000. No one pulled out their lunches.

For something that I just learned to pay attention to from listening to the St. Irenaeus Ministries podcast which is working its way through the Gospel According to  John right now, go read chapter 6 and pay close attention to these lines.

12 When they had had their fill, he said to his disciples, "Gather the fragments left over, so that nothing will be wasted."

13 So they collected them, and filled twelve wicker baskets 8 with fragments from the five barley loaves that had been more than they could eat.

My emphasis added, obviously. Where did those fragments come from? Not from people's lunches. From the five barley loaves. John wasn't leaving that point to chance.

Now that I've expressed myself on that point, let us return to the well written article that prompted it.
Read the whole thing by Father Dwight Longenecker at Patheos.

January Book Report - Part 1

A few of the books I read and enjoyed last month, just in case you haven't come across these yet.

• Who's Your Mama, Are You Catholic and Can You Make a Roux? by Marcelle Bienvenu
  If the title doesn't tell you that this book is an authentic look at life and cooking in Cajun country, then you haven't ever visited Louisiana. Luckily, my husband has a branch of the family firmly entrenched in New Orleans and I have had the pleasure of several visits to the city and a few day trips to the countryside. Marcelle Bienvenu's book intersperses little vignettes of family life as she grew up near St. Martinville. It is a charming book and I've seen several recipes that I'm interested in trying out. Funny how Tom keeps giving me Creole and Cajun cookbooks. I'd better get busy and make something from them!
  
  
• The Neon Rain by James Lee Burke
  I almost felt like putting "foreign lands" as a tag on this book as James Lee Burke writes so lyrically about New Orleans and Louisiana that it is like a travelogue. A travelogue through a very gritty, dark place though. This first book in a series is a noir style tale of police detective Dave Robicheaux's struggle with personal demons, both internal and from organized crime in the city makes a compelling tale. Even more surprising than the lyrical descriptions though, is the underlying Catholicism that defines Robicheaux's character ... down to the point that he prays the rosary when he can't sleep due to fighting off urges to drink.
  
  
• Heaven's Prisoners by James Lee Burke
  This book continues Dave Robicheaux's story after he has turned his back on the New Orleans police force and struck out on his own with a bait/rental shop and barbecue shack in his home town in Cajun country. He finally has the chance for a happy life until one day he sees a plane crash in the lake where he is fishing. This sets into motion a chain of events that severely test his ability to stay away from the detective business.
  
  I'd say more, but to do so would involve many spoilers. I found this book interesting for the portray of the addict's struggle (Dave is in AA, although I would contend that is not all he is addicted to). He falls short in many ways and I wound up disliking his character very much more in this book than in the previous one, Neon Rain. I wonder if that is because I am a woman, while Dave is very much tuned into his manly needs and tends to define his interpersonal relationships that way when dealing with women ... in a way I found unrealistic and distasteful. Or perhaps it is because the author does not give us enough extra info to help understand the reasons behind that behavior. Dave himself seems to understand what it means to be an alcoholic but he does not recognize his many other problems (or so it seems to me).
  
  So I found this book to be a disappointment because I couldn't feel that Dave had done the right thing for most of the book and, in fact, directly brought the biggest tragedies of the story on himself. More importantly, I'm not sure that he really learned anything.
  
  
• Black Cherry Blues by James Lee Burke
  This is the third in the Dave Robicheaux series and the subject of this week's discussion at A Good Story is Hard to Find podcast. It is the reason I read Neon Rain and Heaven's Prisoners. We see Dave's story arc continue as he continues to deal with the personal repercussions of the events in Heaven's Prisoners. He is still running his bait shop and when trouble rears its head this time he has learned to keep his head down (more or less). However, when he is involved in an old friend's trouble and his family is threatened, Dave must once again act to protect those he loves. This leaves him accused of murder and traveling to Montana to clear his name. The themes of forgiveness, confession, and mercy are strong in this novel.
  
  
• The Mystery of Grace by Charles de Lint
  I was intrigued both by the title and by the fact that Charles de Lint was writing about somewhere besides Canada so right after Christmas I took a chance on this when splurging at the bookstore before beginning this year's book fast. Set in the American Southwest this story is a story that is anchored in two worlds. Grace (Altagracia Quintero)loves customizing hot rods, rockabilly, and tattoos. She has one of Nuestra Señora de Altagracia (Our Lady of Grace) on her shoulder. John is a computer geek and artist who is haunted by the loss of his younger brother. Their worlds collide in an unexpected way that leaves them (and us) pondering guilt, love, life after death, when to let go, and the mystery of grace.
  
  This was a completely unexpected book that was at once fascinating, engrossing, and thought provoking. I used to read de Lint long ago at the beginning of his career but hadn't been interested in his work for several years. This was a welcome return to the sort of writing that I used to enjoy.

So when they said, "100% probability of ice pellets and snow," they weren't kidding.

The streets are like sheets of ice, under a snowy layer that is very gradually growing to cover it.

I remember when I first moved to Dallas in the early 1980s and there were continual snow storms and ice storms. Then we had a twenty-something year warm cycle, or so it seems, when we would be wearing shorts practically all winter.

This is the second year for vividly cold weather, at least after the holidays. Looks as if that warm blip is over!

Curses! And I Just Recycled An Altoids Tin Yesterday!

Why do I care? Or curse?

Here are 22 Manly Ways to Reuse an Altoids Tin from, of course, The Art of Manliness.

That games kit is going to haunt me. I'd best go pick up some Altoids so I can work on that ...

Why I'm Catholic: Catholic Conversion Stories

Why I'm Catholic is a website developed to bring Catholic conversion stories to the web 2.0. Check back often for new conversion testimonies from all different faith backgrounds. We hope you will join us in spreading these testaments to the Catholic faith and God's existence...

This is a great looking site that is releasing a lot of different conversion stories from people in all sorts of backgrounds and all walks of life.

It's an interesting place to look around and I can't wait until a Hindu or Buddhist steps up and contributes their story. There are some fascinating stories there, like that of revert John Pridmore who was a London East End Gangster and convert Allen Hunt who was a Methodist mega-church pastor.

Heck, they even included one from an agnostic convert of your acquaintance ... me.

They have just gotten started but I think this has the potential to really communicate to people in a personal way. If you have a conversion story to tell, consider contacting them with it.

Regardless, I think you'll be inspired by the stories so be sure to check out Why I'm Catholic.

2010 Discoveries: Movies & TV

Yes, I'm still looking back at the best of what I discovered in 2010. Here is the last list, movies! 

I couldn't really do these justice and still ever get the post done so I realize the comments below may a bit short or incomplete. I'm planning on picking up the Movies You Might Have Missed series and some of these will be discussed a bit more in that venue.

• District 9: A huge alien ship suddenly shows up over Johannesburg, South Africa but nothing happens. When the people finally muster the nerve to investigate they find that the aliens aboard are sick and dying because they are simply workers who have been left to die when their leaders ran away. The aliens, called "prawn" are housed in a government camp (District Nine) which soon deteriorates to a ghetto. Shot to look like a documentary, the movie takes place many years later, following a middle manager who has been promoted to lead the effort to move the aliens to a new camp, District Ten, further away from the city. Everyone being interviewed keeps mentioning "before the event" and "before things went wrong" so we are prepared for things to go downhill in some way for the poor fellow. However, I never would have predicted how this manager is caught up in the storyline and the discoveries of the movie.
  
  
• Moon: No aliens, big special effects or spaceships are featured in this movie about a lone worker at a moon station that monitors solar energy collection. Sam Bell is at the end of his three-year contract, the solitude is driving him crazy (almost), and then he has a serious accident when driving a lunar vehicle. Mysteriously he winds up back at the space station, healed, and without any idea how he got there. The mystery is one that he can't let go and that leads to the complications that drive the movie. It is essentially a one person play, if you don't count GERTY 3000, the robot voiced by Kevin Spacey. Yet, there is something about it that grabbed me. Sam Rockwell (who plays Sam Bell) is brilliant in this. I have long admired him and this is a showcase of his talent.
  
  
• Inception: Something is locked away in an impregnable fortress, something the owner knows by heart. Can this band of thieves replace it with something so similar that he'll never notice the difference? See my review here.
  
  
• Zombieland: A true delight AND a movie that celebrates family (still chock-full of flesh-eating zombies). Four people seem to be all that are left normal after the zombie apocalypse. Their goal: to go to an amusement park in California that they have heard has no zombies. The part that Woody Harrelson was born to play ... it's in this movie. (Rule #4: watch this movie.)
  
  
• Once Upon a Time in the West: a 3-hour epic Western about of a mysterious, harmonica-playing stranger who is on the track of a ruthless assassin. This winds up with Harmonica occasionally working with a wanted outlaw to help a beautiful widow save her land. Classic, right? Classic Sergio Leone, that is, right down to the Ennio Morricone soundtrack and the classic cast including Charles Bronson, Henry Fonda, and Jason Robards. It is quite a long film and has many lingering shots of stares (hence the illustrative photo above), which Tom thought could have been cut back on. It was long but I actually enjoyed the entire thing.
  
  
• Let the Right One In: Oskar is a lonely and bullied 12-year-old. Eli is the 12-year-old girl who moves into the apartment next door. They form a friendship over puzzles and Morse code. Except that, as Eli tells Oskar, she is not a girl. He must discover for himself that those puzzling words mean she is a vampire. Naturally, one cannot have a vampire in the neighborhood without missing people and murders, which leads to an interesting and telling sideplot about someone who is attacked but lives through it. A study in evil. Read my review here.
  
  
• Mary and Max: an animated movie about an eight year old Australian girl and a 40 year old New Yorker who strike up a pen pal friendship that carries them over 20 years. See my review here.
  
  
• Sita Sings the Blues: This is a creative delight. The Indian story of The Ramayana is told three ways, all from Rama's wife's point of view ... the titular Sita.  An illustrated conversation between Indian shadow puppets is interspersed with musical interludes voiced with tracks by 1920's jazz singer Annette Hanshaw and scenes from creator Nina Paley's life. You can stream this movie free as the creator, unusually, makes it available under a Creative Commons License.
  
  
• Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: Scott Pilgrim hasn't gotten over his bad breakup with a previous girlfriend, dates a high school aged girl, and the falls for the exotic looking and exotically named Ramona Flowers who he sees walking by. Yes, he's a mess and as an insecure young man trying to find his place in the world it was probably inevitable that he is played by Michael Cera. However, this part offers Cera one of the only parts I've seen where he actually gets to occasionally be assertive. Scott Pilgrim begins dating Ramona only to find that he must defeat her seven deadly exes before they can be free to pursue the relationship properly. The movie winds up playing out like a video game (every time Scott battles a deadly ex) interspersed with a tale of young love.  I'm a fan of Edgar Wright, the director, so was among his prime audience but was still surprised to find myself smiling at bits of this movie days after seeing it.
  
  
• The Guild: this is a web-based sitcom centered around the lives of an online role-playing-game guild, The Knights of Good, who play countless hours to the point where it takes over their lives. The main character is Codex, the guild's Priestess, who begins attempting to live a more normal life after one of her guild-mates, Warlock Zaboo shows up on her doorstep wanting to date her. Because it is based around webisodes, each season is about an hour long and I have found it most enjoyable when viewed on dvd where you can "Play all". It is very funny, especially to anyone who has ever lost hours of their life playing an RPG game (not that Baldur's Gate ever stole hours of MY life or had the girls and me trying to work out puzzle solutions ... no, indeedy!)
  
  
• Flight of the Conchords: This cable series revolves around a couple of New Zealand musicians who have come to New York City to try to develop an American fan base for their band, Flight of the Conchords. They are sweet but clueless which, naturally leads to many amusing situations. What puts this over the top is that each episode has at least one song whose performance is woven into the story line. The songs are take-offs of other musical styles or artists (a favorite of mine is the one based on David Bowie's music).
  
  
• Better Off Ted: canceled after two seasons, this ABC sitcom revolved around Ted Crisp who headed up a research and development department for a faceless giant corporation, Veridian Dynamics. His supervisor (Portia de Rossi) embodies the goals of the conglomerate whose soullessness Ted must try to moderate while dealing with the erratic scientists under his management. A gentle comedy that grows on you after watching a few episodes ... and then turns into a necessity.