1/2: What I Accomplished Today

1. Finished His Dark Materials. The ending was a real disappointment, hinging on two really unlikely events [spoilers here; don't read on if you don't want to know]: Mrs. Coulter, who has been really deliciously malevolent, suddenly finds honest, sincere Mother Love for no apparent reason (and says so), and just as we learn that the misflow of Dust is straining to hold back floods and floods of misflowing Dust threatening perhaps to collapse the very Universes themselves--the whole flow is somehow fixed by the puppy love of two twelve-year-olds. Remarkable twelve-year-olds, granted, even on a cosmic scale, and certainly likeable, but--give me a major friggin' break.

Having finished the end of the Harry Potter and Lemony Snicket series this year in addition to rereading the Little House series, this is far and away the worst of the lot, and that's disappointing, because the premises were really, really fun, and the story was good; then the ending was such a cop-out I really wanted to throw something.

I was also a little disappointed because I expected to see the religious controversy, and I was looking forward to reading a series of science fiction book written by a staunch, die-hard atheist. This isn't one; he can claim Atheism all he wants if the label pleases him, but he's too haunted by Christianity to leave it behind him, and it hurts the books. It looks to me like he's suffering from Christianity PTSD (not literally, of course; that's a make-like), and this is just petulant flailings by someone who isn't always entirely certain what he's flailing at. Too bad, too, because some of the ideas (the idea of end of death as ending religion as we know it, for example) warranted real exploration. They didn't get it here. This is someone sticking out his tongue at Christianity, not making a serious, concerted case against it (and yes, I think that's very possible to do in entertaining fiction, but it's not done here).

2. Played some Wii. I played quite a bit last night after I finished my entry here, and this morning, it felt like I'd done a worthwhile workout, so I'll see if I can parlay that.

3. Television and Pogo badges.

4. Level 41 Gnome Warlock. Stranglethorn. Dinged 42. Went to Swamp of Sorrows and was going to finish those questlines, but they really weren't that fun, so I did the ones I needed (fishing, ...and Bugs, and Dream Dust) and left. It's a game, after all, not a series of mandatory to-do lists; I don't have to do everything if I don't want to. (That seems so blatantly self-evident that it shouldn't have taken me this long to reach that conclusion.)

5. Played a little Farm Frenzy. I'm on my fourth character, trying to get all the rewards.

6. Started The Worst Thing I've Done by Ursula Hegi for Literary Society. Also read a few magazines.