Mike's Blog

Drawing and St. Francis

2006-05-06T00:12:00.000-04:00

It's been far to long since I've posted anything. So, what am I up to? I'm glad you asked.
Lately, I've been getting in touch with my inner artist. Ever since I was a kid I've lived under the impression that I couldn't draw. I distinctly remember a friend of mine, in about the fifth grade telling me that I couldn't draw worth a flip. I've always assumed that drawing was just an area in which I was untalented.
Then around Thanksgiving I started drawing little cartoons on the white board on my mom's refrigerator. I didn't think much of them, but when my brother seemed to be impressed by them it made me start looking at it differently. Then I took a theater class in design and I started to realize that art could be a lot of different things. So, I started to look at all the little doodles I kept making in my notebook as art. Then, the other day I found a sketch pad that I had bought for a class and barely used. I started drawing pictures in it and, to my surprise, I discovered that I liked them. So, I thought I'd like to learn a bit more about drawing. I went out and got a book about drawing dragons, and I've started working through it. I've been picking things up much more quickly than I thought I would. It feels really good to be learning to do something that I always thought I couldn't do.

Before I go there's something else I want to post. It was on my mind the other day and I wanted to put it up here, but for some reason I couldn't log in.
This is called "The Prayer of Saint Francis". The author is unkown, but it got its name because it was found in Assissi near a picture of St. Francis.

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we recieve,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Amen

This prayer has been in my mind a lot lately as a reminder of what I want my life to be about.

Beards

2006-04-30T23:59:00.000-04:00

I just discovered something that I think is pretty cool: Beard and mustache competitions! People from many different countries come together to show off their whiskers and see who is #1. I had no idea it was possible to be so creative with facial hair!

I first found out about it when I discovered this slide show on Yahoo! news. Check out those beards! After reading it I did a Google search and found the official web site of the World Beard and Mustache Championships. I also found discovered that a feature-length film about beard competions is being made. The film is called Splitting Hairs.

Ah, what a wonderful world we live in!

Easter Egg Hunt

2006-04-18T21:14:00.000-04:00

On Sunday my family had our annual Easter egg hunt. Me and Dee and my mom hid the eggs, and my neice and nephew hunted them. Afterward we all went fishing. Dee caught a huge catfish which, unfortunately we didn't get a picture of. We did however get pictures of the egg hunt itself.

Fantasy Movies

2006-03-30T23:28:00.000-05:00

It's no secret that I'm a fan of fantasy. I've seen some good fantasy movies lately that might have gotten in under the radar so I thought I'd talk about 'em.

Mirrormask This is based on a book by Neil Gaiman, one of my all time favorite writers. It falls into the category of stories about a child who gets caught up in a surreal dream-like world (e.g. Labyrinth, Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz). The visuals in this movie are absolutely amazing. I loved it.

Howl's Moving Castle From a book by Diana Wynne Jones and directed by the legendary japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki. This is the third one of Miyazaki's films I have seen and they have all featured beautiful artwork and fantasy stories that are very different from American movies. This one is set in a fantasy world with wizards, demons, and flying ships. It is about Sofie, a young girl who has been cursed with old age, who meets Howl, a mysterious wizard with a magical moving castle. The two of them end up getting caught in the middle of a magical war. If you like anime I highly recommend this movie. If you're thinking about exploring anime, Miyazaki's work is a great place to start.

Dark Kingdom: The Dragon King This is a Sci-Fi Channel miniseries. I haven't been too happy with their fantasy movies in the past (*cough* Earthsea *cough*), but I had high hopes for this one because of the subject matter. It is based on the Nibelungenlied, a Germanic saga from the middle ages, which is often mentioned as having been a big influence on J.R.R. Tolkien and which was the basis for the epic opera Der Ring des Nibelungen. I've only seen the first part at this point, but so far it's pretty good for a TV movie. It turns out that this was not made by the Sci-Fi Channel after all, but is a European movie that has gone by many titles including Ring of the Nibelungs and Sword of Xantan.

Well, that's it for now.

Feline Justice

2006-03-29T14:19:00.000-05:00

Having shared a home with many cats over the years, I'm well aware that they are all insane. But, this is the first time I've ever heard of one being arrested!

St. Patrick's Day

2006-03-20T09:53:00.000-05:00

This past Friday we had a St. Patrick's Day party. Here are some pictures from it.

Mike's Movie Reviews

2006-03-14T08:19:00.000-05:00

Today, I thought I'd take this time to review the last few movies I've watched. So here we go, in reverse order.

First up is, The Clan of the Cave Bear. This movie was made in 1986 and stars Daryl Hannah. I'd heard good things about the book, and I had a free non-new release coming from Blockbuster so I decided to give this one a try. I was a little worried though as it is a caveman movie and my previous experience is that those tend to be boring and corny. But this one, I'm happy to say was very good. The story is about a group of Neanderthals known as "the Clan of the Cave Bear". The medicine woman of the Clan finds a young girl named Ayla who has been seperated from her people and injured. Ayla is one of "the Others", a newly emerging humanoid species (these are the CroMagnons, the ancestors of modern humans). The Clan doesn't much like Ayla because she does not have "the memories", the instincts that all Neanderthals are born with, but they soon find that she is remarkably intelligent and adaptable. The story follows Ayla struggles to find a place within the Clan. The amazing thing is that the filmmakers pull it off and the characters come across as complex and interesting people rather than performing monkeys (no offense to monkeys). One thing that helps is the use of subtitles to translate the primitive language of the Clan into its modern English equivalent. I found it particularly interesting because I recently read The Masks of God: Primitive Mythology by Joseph Campbell, and a lot of the topics from that book appear in this movie. Such as vision quests, totem animals, and the ritual of the hunt.

Next up is DOOM, based on the computer game and starring The Rock (from WWE) and Karl Urban (from Lord of the Rings). All right, let me get a rant out of the way first. I hate it when they take a video game that has a story that would make a good movie and then change the story when they make the movie. They did it with Tomb Raider, but with DOOM it is much worse. As everyone who played computer games in the 1990s knows DOOM is about a research facility on the moons of Mars that, as a result of an experiment with interdimension travel gone awry, opens a portal to hell, thuse unleashing a horde of demons into our reality. In the movie a botched genetics experiment causes people to turn into murderous mutants. Now, I like mutants as much as the next guy, but now there will never be a movie made of the "real" DOOM story. And DOOM without demons just seems wrong somehow.
That problem aside, though, DOOM is a pretty good sci-fi monster movie. It captures the game's scariness and over-the-top violence quite well. There is also an interesting moral element to the story as the mutation effects people differently depending on what kind of person they are, thus leaving the marines with the dilemma of trying to sort the good people from the bad people. There is also one scene near the end which, not to spoil anything, I will just say will give any one who's ever played DOOM some serious flashbacks. There's also a neat DVD extra that features people from G4 reminiscing about the game and talking about how it affected the industry. It inspired me to hunt down the original DOOM shareware on the internet, which can still be downloaded for free.

Finally, the last movie I actually saw in a theater was the new remake of The Pink Panther starring Steve Martin. This movie was excellent! Pure comedy in the classic style. The story is a sort of prequel to the old movies in that it features Clousaeu on his first big case, but I don't think they are really trying to preserve continuity with the old ones. It is set in France. A famous rich guy is murdered and his prize possession, the legendary Pink Panther diamond, is missing. Chief Inspector Dreyfus (played by Kevin Kline) wants to solve the case and get the glory, but he doesn't want the media hounding him. So he hatches a plan to find the most inept officer on the force, promote him to Inspector, and give him the case, hoping that he will keep the media distracted while Dreyfus solves the case himself. The man he chooses for the job is Jacques Clouseau (Steve Martin), who thinks he has been promoted for his skill as an investigator. Hilarity ensues as Clouseau bumbles his way to solving the case. Very, very funny. I can't recommend it enough. I've only seen a couple of the other Pink Panther movies. I'd like to hunt them down if I get the chance.

Well, that's it for today. Until next time.

Triquetra

2006-03-09T21:19:00.000-05:00

There is a symbol that I really like. It looks like this:

I used to have it on a ring, but I lost the ring. Now I have it as a window cling on my car. When I was about to put it on my car today, I decided I'd better find out what the symbol means in case anyone asks.

I found a useful website called Symbols.com. It lets you look up symbols and tells you where they came from and their meaning. Unfortunately, it didn't have a lot of info on this symbol but it did tell me the name of it. It is called the "triquetra". Armed with that knowledge I was able to do a Google search to get more information.

The triquetra embodies the concept of "trinity" or "three-in-one". It has been found on rune stones in Europe. It's meaning here is uncertain though some have pointed out its similarity to a symbol which represents the god Odin. Its most well-known use historically has been as a symbol of the Holy Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). Modern day pagans use it to represent the Triple Goddess (Maiden, Mother, and Crone). It is also used in other contexts to symbolize different trinities such as mind, body, and soul and earth, sea and sky. And, of course, fans of the WB series Charmed will immediately recognize it as the symbol on the cover of the Book of Shadows, where it represents the bond among the three sisters, which they call "the power of three".

The triquetra is made up of another symbol known as the vesica piscis. This is the almond shaped area made up of the intersection of two circles. It was considered holy by the Pythagoreans and it is from the vesica piscis that the famous ichthys symbol is derived. The triquetra is made up of three vesicae piscis, the intersection of three linked circles.

So it would seem that the triquetra is a sort of universal spiritual symbol. I guess I like it because it invokes the magic of archaic cultures which I find both fascinating and inspiring. It also, to me, resonates with a sense of strength, wholeness, and unity from diversity.

Well, there you have it. All you ever wanted to know (or perhaps never wanted to know) about the triquetra. Giving credit where it's due, my sources included Wikipedia, About.com, Byzant Mystical and, oddly enough, The Museum of Talking Boards.

Until next time.

Home Alone

2006-03-08T14:01:00.000-05:00

Well, Dee's gone back to work today, so I'm home by myself. Maybe I'll get some things done today that I've been meaning to get to. Or, maybe I'll just be a bum!

I just saw this on Yahoo! news:

It is a new type of animal that has recently been discovered. Scientists have named it "Kiwa Hirsuta", after Kiwa, the Polynesian goddess of crustaceans.

I found this on the internet a while back and I've been wanting to show it to somebody:

Give it a try and let me know what you think.

Busy Weekend

2006-03-06T20:57:00.000-05:00

Well, it's been a busy and fun weekend.

On Saturday night, Dee and I went to a cookout at the home of our friends Chris and Julie. The cookout featured lots of food, many, many Jell-O shooters and a karaoke machine. Dee and I sang a duet of the song "Summer Nights" from the movie Grease.

Yesterday I went to church. I go to a church called UUMAN in Roswell, GA. I also had an unexpected visit from my friend Michael. We went to high school together, but now he lives in Tennessee so we don't see each other often.

Last night we had our weekly Dungeons & Dragons game of which I am the DM. It was fun as always. We are running the Age of Worms adventure path from Dungeon magazine.

And today we took our dog Sadie to the park where we walked and met other dog owners. I am on spring break this week and this was the first day Dee and I have had off together in a long time.

Speaking of Dungeons & Dragons, no less a celebrity than the great Stephen Colbert talked about D&D the other day on The Colbert Report. You can see a clip of it here. It is the video titled "End of an Era".

My New Blog

2006-03-03T21:17:00.000-05:00

Hi, everybody.
Well, I've been thinking about getting into blogging for a while now, and I decided today was the day!

So now, without further ado I hereby christen this:

Mike's Blog