Serious Chin-Stroking Book Stuff Completely Ruined By Hockey Silliness
LiveJournal has switched to a spring banner motif...as I look out my window and see a fresh couple of inches of snow on the ground. Blargh.
I've put The Faerie Queen to bed, so now I can get on with the rest of literary life. Right now that means some books about Shakespeare (some criticism, some history), Ovid because I think all my online lists say I've already read it but I'm actually not all that sure, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication on the Rights of Woman. The latter is actually really interesting - even with its formerly radical premise of "Hey, maybe woman are so ignorant because they receive no education outside of dressing their hair!" The essays still have relevance, if only in that I think women still need the lesson that useful virtue (virtue meaning the examined full life, rather than just moral/sexual virtue) is more sustaining than the single-minded pursuit of obtaining vapid social charms to augment fleeting physical beauties and Harlequin-style notions of love. The equal education of the sexes has arguably been achieved, even surpassed since many statistics purport that more women than men have college degrees now in the US. But I think we has a gender still struggle with building lives of independent fulfillment when we are still encouraged to be prettier and not necessarily more interesting. Anyway, for something written in the late 18th century, it's pretty readable (and short), so I recommend picking it up sometime.
I think I'm also going to pick up The Pickwick Papers, but I've also gotten to that point where getting through more Dickens is tedious. Maybe this and The Old Curiosity Shop or Little Dorrit and I'm going to stop with his canon. I've read a lot and nothing is a huge favorite. I like David Copperfield and a few others, but not enough to slug through the lesser stuff. I feel like I should read Pickwick because it's a big part of the March girls' life in Little Women, though so was The Pilgrim's Progress and that was pretty dreadful. Maybe I shouldn't rely on their tastes...
I recently found out that the new Sabres management has created some kind of online public "suggestion box" for the fans to make suggestions. Firstly, I'm having trouble imagining this as anything but a good idea that is going to blow up in their face. However, I've come up with some suggestions of my own for your consideration:
1. In-arena Tim Horton's like the Penguins have (come on, it's the only place in Buffalo you can't get Timmy Ho's)
2. Stop trading away all of our veteran defensemen unless you're getting Nick Lidstrom in return.
3. Make Ryan Miller available for, umm...adult parties (within reason, we don't want to upset the fiancee).
4. Retire Dominik Hasek's number already. Come on.
5. Since I haven't been to a home game in years, I'm not sure if we're doing this like everyone else is, but if we have "Ice Girls"/equivalent, stop using said girls, use extra $$ to give Sabretooth a jetpack/equivalent.
6. Get at least one guy with a proven multi-year (in a row) track record of scoring at least 30 goals a year.
7. Two words: Zamboni. Racing.
8. Don't be afraid of making a move at trade deadlines or during the summer.
9. Since he never plays, have Lalime wear a different wacky hat every night on the bench. Have a contest to pick a name for each wacky hat. Winner gets some piece of Sabres memorabilia.
10. Do better than you are currently doing and try to win.
As a last piece of hockey-relatedness, I give you the following exchange:
Me: Blah, blah, blah, some joke about Marty Biron.
Dad: You know he's out with a broken collarbone, right?
Me: NO!...(slight pause)...*gaspy puck bunny stage whisper* We have SO MUCH IN COMMON!!
Mom: That pony farm's happening any day now...
I've put The Faerie Queen to bed, so now I can get on with the rest of literary life. Right now that means some books about Shakespeare (some criticism, some history), Ovid because I think all my online lists say I've already read it but I'm actually not all that sure, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication on the Rights of Woman. The latter is actually really interesting - even with its formerly radical premise of "Hey, maybe woman are so ignorant because they receive no education outside of dressing their hair!" The essays still have relevance, if only in that I think women still need the lesson that useful virtue (virtue meaning the examined full life, rather than just moral/sexual virtue) is more sustaining than the single-minded pursuit of obtaining vapid social charms to augment fleeting physical beauties and Harlequin-style notions of love. The equal education of the sexes has arguably been achieved, even surpassed since many statistics purport that more women than men have college degrees now in the US. But I think we has a gender still struggle with building lives of independent fulfillment when we are still encouraged to be prettier and not necessarily more interesting. Anyway, for something written in the late 18th century, it's pretty readable (and short), so I recommend picking it up sometime.
I think I'm also going to pick up The Pickwick Papers, but I've also gotten to that point where getting through more Dickens is tedious. Maybe this and The Old Curiosity Shop or Little Dorrit and I'm going to stop with his canon. I've read a lot and nothing is a huge favorite. I like David Copperfield and a few others, but not enough to slug through the lesser stuff. I feel like I should read Pickwick because it's a big part of the March girls' life in Little Women, though so was The Pilgrim's Progress and that was pretty dreadful. Maybe I shouldn't rely on their tastes...
I recently found out that the new Sabres management has created some kind of online public "suggestion box" for the fans to make suggestions. Firstly, I'm having trouble imagining this as anything but a good idea that is going to blow up in their face. However, I've come up with some suggestions of my own for your consideration:
1. In-arena Tim Horton's like the Penguins have (come on, it's the only place in Buffalo you can't get Timmy Ho's)
2. Stop trading away all of our veteran defensemen unless you're getting Nick Lidstrom in return.
3. Make Ryan Miller available for, umm...adult parties (within reason, we don't want to upset the fiancee).
4. Retire Dominik Hasek's number already. Come on.
5. Since I haven't been to a home game in years, I'm not sure if we're doing this like everyone else is, but if we have "Ice Girls"/equivalent, stop using said girls, use extra $$ to give Sabretooth a jetpack/equivalent.
6. Get at least one guy with a proven multi-year (in a row) track record of scoring at least 30 goals a year.
7. Two words: Zamboni. Racing.
8. Don't be afraid of making a move at trade deadlines or during the summer.
9. Since he never plays, have Lalime wear a different wacky hat every night on the bench. Have a contest to pick a name for each wacky hat. Winner gets some piece of Sabres memorabilia.
10. Do better than you are currently doing and try to win.
As a last piece of hockey-relatedness, I give you the following exchange:
Me: Blah, blah, blah, some joke about Marty Biron.
Dad: You know he's out with a broken collarbone, right?
Me: NO!...(slight pause)...*gaspy puck bunny stage whisper* We have SO MUCH IN COMMON!!
Mom: That pony farm's happening any day now...