three things

[calimac]

1. A frequent complaint about The Silmarillion is that it's filled with characters with confusingly similar names like Finwë, Finrod, Fingon, Fingolfin, and Finarfin. The same critics ought to have a look at Iran, which has Khamenei, Khomenei, Khatabi, and Karroubi, all emphatically different people, not to mention the sesquipedalian Ahmadinejad.

2. A review of the new Star Trek movie asks if having Winona Ryder play Spock's greying mother makes you feel old. Hold on a minute: I checked. She's actually only six years senior to the guy who plays Spock. Not as old as it may seem. I'm reminded of finding in my youth a panicked headline reading, "Oh no! Liz Taylor is 40!" My reaction was, So? She'd always been old enough to be my mother; why should I care how old she was?

3. I'll tell you what's old; my cell phone is old. I've had the same one since I first got one, four and a half years, but the mouthpiece is dead. I'm not used to discarding equipment that's only four and a half years old. I'm looking over at my stereo. My CD player is old enough to drink. My amp is old enough to run for President next time. But they still work, basically.

Comments

[serendipoz.livejournal.com]

Cell phones are oddities on tradein/recycle - at least to me.

I sent my first off (and got $5 for it) - seldom used.

My second is waiting for me to send it off ($???) - seldom used again.

I managed to lose my first (company) blackberry into a toilet - replaced.

I manged to kill the select button on my second (company) blackberry - replaced.

The third was returned to them when they returned me.

I've lost my first (personal) blackberry when the powerup wouldn't - replaced. I managed until the replacement arrived by trading batteries and turning it off mostly. (Five days worth!)

The second one is now what I use.

Too much on it - google maps, internet (small screen) access, lots of apps, email (gmail) and phone (less used.)

Can't live without I guess.

Do have stereo and other bits, not to mention father's 1930's pressure cooker, ... talk about anal retentive?

Joyce

[jane-dennis.livejournal.com]

1) Do they complain because Tolkien's names are confusing, or somehow "wrong"? That the former could be true doesn't make the latter so. I admit to making notes of "familiar" Sindarin forms of the names' equivalents in Quenya, ie, Feanor = Curufinwe, Maglor = Macalaure, etc. (Sorry, the umlauts are still packed away in a box. All those accent marks are a lot more annoying to me than similar names anyway.)

2) I'd have to know who Winona Ryder is before I could answer.

3) Sigh. I kept my first cell phone 4 years. Lost the replacement 2 yrs on, and Scott is currently using the 3rd gen. I don't own a CD player (except for the one in my 5 yr old laptop, my only computer). I currently own 2 TVs and two stereos, all inherited, all old enough to drink, and yes, the stereos could run for Prez; and a DVD player (gift) that's not real new.

You know what makes me feel old? Me. I'll be tottering off to bed real soon now.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

1) Confusing.

2) I've seen a number of her films - Edward Scissorhands, A Scanner Darkly, Looking for Richard, the infamous Heathers, How to Make an American Quilt, The Last Remake of Little Women ... though not the Trek remake. Most of these are good films and I enjoyed them.

3) If I'd ever lost the cell phone, I wouldn't be in this pickle now.

the infamous Heathers

[(Anonymous)]

Heathers is twenty years old this year, and remains one of my favorite movies ever: a significant forebear of Buffy. And probably still Winona Ryder’s best performance.

What was your problem with it, again?

Don Keller

[supergee.livejournal.com]

Iran certainly sounds to me like bad fantasy.

My two cents

[visualweasel.livejournal.com]

1. A frequent complaint about The Silmarillion is that it's filled with characters with confusingly similar names [...]. The same critics ought to have a look at Iran [...]

Very true. And this was also true in the Middle Ages. Two of the three major players in what would become known as the Norman Conquest were both named Harold (one often spelled Harald, which helps a little), respectively the Kings of England and of Norway. And Scandinavian history, in particular, is littered with sound-alikes. It's only less common in America today because the linguistic sources of our names are now so varied (an onomastic "melting pot").

2. A review of the new Star Trek movie asks if having Winona Ryder play Spock's greying mother makes you feel old. Hold on a minute: I checked. She's actually only six years senior to the guy who plays Spock. [...]

I can see why you wouldn't care, but the reviewer doesn't mean that Winona Ryder is particularly old, only that she's now in her third decade of acting. Zachary Quinto is still in his first. Considering the nostalgia for all things '80s these days, people have a soft spot for Winona Ryder again. However, I agree, it's a silly comment.

3. I'll tell you what's old; my cell phone is old. [...] I'm not used to discarding equipment that's only four and a half years old.

They call it planned obsolescence, and boy is it irritating! It's also one of the reasons I don't own a cell phone. If I really need one (while travelling, for instance), I borrow one.

[scribblerworks.livejournal.com]

(1) I don't mind the similar sounding names. As observed, in the Northern naming traditions sound-alike can be standard (Edward, Ethelred, Edgar, Edwin, etc.). Tough toenails if those readers don't want to pay attention. I'd rather have the sound-alikes than dorky names like... "Alanon". :D

(2) And she's right up there with Glenn Close playing mother to Mel Gibson in Hamlet, or Angela Lansbury in The Manchurian Candidate, in being close in age to the actor playing her son. That sort of thing doesn't make me feel old. To me, the odd thing was that the last acting I saw her in was The Crucible, wherein she was the (supposedly) teen-aged girl fixated on the farmer. The jump from teen nymphet to greying mother was what was jarring. Where are her in-between performances? Heh.

(3) Cell phones. On my third one now. I needed to upgrade to this one, to have Bluetooth, which I got in advance of the hands-free requirement for phone talking while driving. When I was still working, the 40 minute drive home from Culver City was the best time for me to contact family and friends in the Eastward reaches. By the time I got home, it was often very late for them, so "Talk & Drive" was my option for staying in contact. I'll keep this one a while longer -- though I expect the next one will be to upgrade to the full internet connecting ones (don't have that right now). This one also has a camera, which the previous one did not: it has been useful for that.

[gold-alarm.livejournal.com]

I used this giant clunky Nokia for like three years when I first got a cell phone, one that'd been, like, totally out of circulation for at least, I don't know, five years before I got it. But it was free with the plan! But I finally caved a couple of years ago and got a sleeker phone, also a Nokia. It's not as attention-grabbing (in a wtf way) when I pull it out in public, so that's good. :)

[wild-patience.livejournal.com]

My bicycle is old enough to drive.

[trinfaneb.livejournal.com]

1.--Maybe I should look up my old college advisor (a middle east history specialist) and ask what his take on the Iran name deal is.

2.--I still haven't seen the movie, but I too had a slight WTF moment when I heard about the casting, but then I realized they needed someone pretty young to deal with the slower visible aging of Vulcans. One of the comments to film stills from 1994's Leon (The Professional) is that it was Ryder's peak as an actress...
http://community.livejournal.com/film_stills/1636581.html#cutid1

3.--I've yet to get a cell phone, although I do have a replica Star Trek communicator that's pretty neat :)

[trinfaneb.livejournal.com]

Whoops, brain fart: it was Natalie Portman in Leon, not Ryder.