I just finished reading the final book of a five-part series by Lloyd Alexander, a series that I first read ten years ago and hadn’t read again since.  These books belong to the "fantasy" genre, I think, but that is a vague descriptor.  I’ll not attempt to give any sort of summary, but the story involves themes of courage and honor and heroism and love, and is set in a time when battles were fought with swords.  Though fictional, the story gives a thoroughly real account of the the struggles between good and evil, among men at war with eachother, and in the heart of every man.  Across the five books, Taran’s character is developed in a way that shows his own struggle to learn what is right, and to do what is right, and to learn to reconcile that with the desires of his heart.

Having mentioned a character’s name, I suppose I should name the books, eh?  They are The Book of Three, The Black Cauldron, The Castle of Llyr, Taran Wanderer, and The High King.  Though each could be read separately, they form one series about a set of characters that you can’t fully understand without reading all five.  I was never really into reading these kinds of books (fantasy novels) as a kid, but most of my good friends were, and somehow they got me to read this series.  It’s still the only one I’ve ever read -- I never read the Tolkien series, though I was forced to read The Hobbit for school.

It turns out that ten years was a nearly ideal interval between readings of this story.  I had forgotten almost all of the major plot elements, along with the details that make the books so enjoyable.  I remembered some things, of course, but for most of this re-reading I had no idea what was going to happen next.  At times I had a sort of premonition of good or bad about to befall the characters, but rarely knew exactly what it would be until it happened.  I had thought I remembered one big thing, though -- the question of what would happen with Eilonwy -- until I got to the last ten pages of the final book.  I had totally forgotten about Taran’s final decision (and thus, his final destiny), and I was so incredibly sad when he announced it.  I almost never cry, but I did get a little misty at that point.

One thing that I didn’t forget was how much I loved this story, and I love it just as much now having read it again.  It’s classified as a children’s book, but I don’t think that’s accurate at all.  It’s easy to read, but it isn’t written in childish language, and the themes are certainly not childish.  Still, I thought that perhaps I only love it now as an adult because I’d read it as a boy.  But then I just read some reviews of it on amazon.com, and there are hundreds, and they are glowing.  And apparently the story is forty years old; I had no idea it was that old.  It’s also compared to the Tolkien series, and many people seem to think it’s right up there with the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

I think three things in particular make this story exceptional.  First, it deals with themes that every person relates to, and more than that, ideals that every person aspires to in some way.  It makes you identify strongly with the characters and get emotionally attached and want things to work out a certain way.  As I said, though the story is fictional, the main ideas are very real and very familiar to us.  Second is that there are endless plot twists that have you saying, "No, no NO!!" and then "Whew," and also ones that have you thinking things are just fine right before everything is suddenly dashed to bits in some way.  Many times I got extremely angry about events in the books, and equally often I was just completely elated, feeling as though it were me on the receiving end of whatever great thing just occurred.  The element of the story that’s either the main element or the "other" main element, depending on how you see the overall story, involved at least 3 giant twists for itself alone.  It was gut-wrenching waiting and wondering how it would turn out, and then just when you think it’s settled and over, it twists again, twice right in a row, right at the end!  Finally, the books are just plain hilarious at times.  Whether because of events, or the ways that the author often arranges spoken phrases in riddles, or just the sarcasm of the characters, I laughed out loud not a few times while completing the series.

So I highly recommend this series to anyone who has not read it, and anyone who has not read it since grade school.  I am anxious for the passage of time to make me forget the story again, so that I can read it anew in another ten years.

The major media outlets in this country are spineless propagandists.  There were multiple large anti-terrorism pro-democracy rallies in Iraq last week and, with pitifully few exceptions, American reporters who were on the scene didn’t report them.

Glenn Reynolds has a few pages on the rallies and the dearth of coverage.  Iraqi blogger Zeyad was there, though, and he took lots of photos, and has a few posts about the events.  Here’s a bit:

At one point it struck me that our many differences as an Iraqi people meant nothing.  Here we were all together shouting in different languages the same slogans "NO NO to terrorism, YES YES for peace".
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What was interesting, a group of Al-Sadr supporters showed up and started shouting "NO NO to occupiers" obviously in an attempt to hijack the demonstration.  They drowned in the rest of the crowd.
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When we were marching on Dec 10 I told Omar that maybe we didn’t need to cover the protests after all since it looked like reporters from all the major media agencies were doing so.  As you can see in my pictures there were scores of reporters and cameras all over the place.  And since the rallies ended in front of the Palestine hotel we thought that it would be impossible for the media to ignore this event.
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The last thing we expected was to be the first to publish anything about the protests.  It felt both good and awful at the same time. Good for scooping Reuters, AFP, AP, and other wire services and media stations.  And awful for the people that depended on these services for their news.  I’m telling you there were reporters from every station in the world at the demos that day and yet only a few mentioned them at all.

...it was very obvious that the protestors were much more than 10,000.  The Anti-terrorism Popular Committee stated that there were more than 20,000 demonstrators marching.  Imagine if half or even a quarter of that number were demonstrating against the war or against the occupation. What do you think would have happened? Would the media ignore it?
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Iraqis are getting bolder.  And despite the risk of being targetted we felt more safe than ever marching with the others.  The IP [Iraqi Police] did a great job of providing protection, and the Americans had two helicopters circling the area.

It was wonderful watching Iraqis from different backgrounds, ethnicities, age groups, and political beliefs all marching for the same cause.  Seeing Muslim clerics walking along Communists shouting "No to terrorism, Yes to peace and democracy" was priceless.

Throw out your TV.

Hey, I am looking for a NAS solution that comes with built in replication (deltas only) to like devices (other NAS) or CIFS.  Our main data center is trying to push us toward HP StorageWorks solution running Windows Storage Server 2003.  I would rather get a true (and open) appliance solution even if we have to drop one appliance box at each site.

Total of 3 sites to replicate one way to a central NAS.  Initially need 200GB space.  The main problem is that I don’t want to craft my own solution.  Best solution will be clean, slick, reliable and come built in or easy "add on" to NAS appliance.  I am also looking at Veritas Volume Replicator.  Any ideas?

From time.com:

When asked "How are you?" said the official, Saddam responded, "I am sad because my people are in bondage."  When offered a glass of water by his interrogators, Saddam replied, "If I drink water I will have to go to the bathroom and how can I use the bathroom when my people are in bondage?"

I just don’t know what to say about a statement like that...

Well it’s 6am, I can’t sleep, and I can’t study any more... the words (ok, symbols and numbers, really) are all becoming a blur to me.  Lately I’ve been thinking that I should post a screenshot, because they’re fun and I’ve never done that before.  (For those who don’t know, this is a game where you find a really cool background image, and then set up some cool-looking programs to make it look like you were just working on them, and then take a screenshot of it.)  Oh, and I’m bucking the unwritten law of screenshots that says all screenshots must have at least 8 different gimp dialogs in them.  So... there you go.  Click the image to see the full-size one.

al-Reuters reports that "Washington’s beleaguered occupying force" has captured Saddam Hussein.  Of course, good news (for America) is no news to al-Reuters, so in the article about Saddam, they also had to report that Bin Laden is still at large.

Now as long as the Amnesty International crybabies don’t get involved, Saddam will get what he deserves from the Iraqi people: death.

i saw a band tonight called the milwaukees, they’re on the same label that put out Joshua’s first EP (a band i know anthony likes) and i was positively blown away by this band; download this song and i hope you’ll agree.  if i’m late on the uptake with this band and everyone knows about them, where was i all this time?  either way they rule.

Hey I came across this really cool site. I recommend everyone checks it out
Anthony, I read what you had to say about George W. Bush....do you seriously believe he is a Christian?