roast mutton.

i love 'the hobbit'. granted, i haven't read the full lord of the rings trilogy, but i think what i've read (the first of them all), i still prefer bilbo to frodo. at least his book. this is for lots of reasons, but i think a big part of it is the fact that in reading it i was introduced to all sorts of new creatures, peoples, ideas and so on and so forth that when i read the fellowship it just didn't have the same kick in the pants as found in 'there and back again.'

one chapter is still a favorite. i took the liberty of having this post share the name of the chapter, "roast mutton." the basic summary (starting some way into the chapter) is that bilbo, being the master thief he is, is assigned by his accompanying dwarves to investigate a fire in the distance of the woods and either befriend the owners, or pilfer some food. he's to give warning if it's dangerous. he is caught by three trolls round the fire, but is able to escape. sadly, the dwarves without the warning have since gone in themselves and been captured and bound, one by one by the said trolls. as things seem worst, the trolls argue and contemplate the fate of the dwarves. all of them involve somehow eating them, but the big debate rests between boiling, bludgeoning to goo, roasting, etc., etc., etc.. luckily, they oafish trolls wind up debating on this point for so long and arguing about whatever they can, really, the morning comes, and with it the sun that turns three trolls to stone. but of course, the narrow escape has more than meets the eye. gandalf (our resident wizard) reveals himself and the fact that he had been perpetuating the arguement the whole time using voices to match each troll and irritating the others to buy time 'til morning. with the dwarves freed, and a key to their lair in hand, they continue on the journey. the trolls are turned to stone because they're each convinced the others are trying to undermine their own efforts or ideas (you could say things about the dwarves as well, but we'll save that for another over-analyitical post). so, lesson learned. when you insist on arguing, whether you're in the wrong or in the right, it usually leads to the same thing. being made of stone, and more generally speaking, stale mates and failure all around. and now to justify the title. the chapter's name comes from the troll's heard conversation prior to bilbo's being caught. a snippet from the text:

"Mutton yesterday, mutton today, and blimey, if it don't look like mutton again tomorrer," said one of the trolls.

"Never a blinking bit of manflesh have we had for long enough," said a second. "What the 'ell William was a-thinkin' of to bring us into these parts at all, beats me - and the drink runnin' short, what's more," he said jogging the elbow of William, who was taking a pull at his jug.

William choked. "Shut yer mouth!" he said as soon as he could. "Yer can't expect folk to stop here for ever just to be et by you and Bert. You've et a village and a half between yer, since we come down from the mountains. How much more d'yer want? And time's been up our way, when yer'd have said 'thank yer Bill' for a nice bit o' fat valley mutton like what this is." He took a big bite off a sheep's leg he was toasting, and wiped his lips on his sleeve.

they were fed up with roast mutton. they wanted to eat man flesh. is that so wrong? i don't think so. not for a troll, anyway. so i think to myself, "i enjoy roast mutton. but every night? i want to eat human," speaking allegorically. and then, pop! in comes a hobbit. a little thing like that would be easy enough and, though not a full person, better meat just the same. lose the hobbit. that's a shame. gain a bunch of dwarves. what a stroke of luck. spend the whole night bickering and turn to stone. that's the biggest shame. that they had what they wanted (moreso in a way, because trolls hate dwarves. eating them would be like an ultimate double whammy), and then it's gone. all gone. sometimes it's like i'm currently in one of two phases of the story. a) lost the hobbit, now hoping to have dwarves show up, or b) bickering until sunrise.

neither one is very satisfying, so at some point i'm hoping to move into the the-hobbit's-a-hero-let's-go-retrieve-the-trolls'-treasure portion of the story soon. that would be nice.

on a seperate note, but one that helped to pick the chapter's name, i grew out some infant mutton chops this weekend, which was very enjoyable. they only had just short of a week to grow, so nothing to impressive, but it was fun to have them while i did. from thursday to tuesday around 4:30 they were still around. but, then they had to come off. but they live on in spirit, and will continue to live on during weekends, holidays, and school breaks.

anyway, long winded, probably pretty boring, and completely normal for this blog; this post is done. thanks for reading, and i'll see you next time.

trace lund

level four shambling krenshar

from time to time, feel like i need to have some connection to nerd culture that i don't have by nature. not because i feel i need credibility or anything of that sort, more just because it seems to fill some void created by my not doing especially nerdy all that often.

there are of course many ways to go about filling this void, but i generally prefer more concentrated or potent sources. distilled nerdiness, if you will. i'll share a few i've found as of recent.

one that i've discovered since i hopped on the blogging train is called the "WoW fail blog" (the "WoW" is short for world of warcraft, for the unenlightened). before i go further, it should be known that i don't play world of warcraft. at one point i owned warcraft II for windows 98, but i didn't even enjoy that all that much. but anyway, suffice it to say that i don't play world of warcraft and plan on never doing so.

however.

what makes this blog useful to me is the fact that i get all the nerdiness of "WoW" condensed into jokes and stories that make me feel as if i know what's going on. therefore, even though i'll never actually be a level 68 undead mage, i can still have a laugh at an extremely nerdy joke about them on this site (even if i have to do some research to actually get it). and so, a bit of the void is filled.

it should be noted that this is animating a concept more than it is a specific thing that i love. sometimes simply talking about wizards and orcs and elves and whatever is, for whatever reason, very satisfying. i think this is why the lord of the rings films were so popular even outside of literature and warhammer types. sometimes we all like to have an excuse to talk about dwarves fighting goblins. it's simple as that.


another bit is filled with computer emulators and 8 bit music. once again, these are things that many people spend a great deal of time and effort creating and using, which is extremely nerdy. however, not being as cool or devoted as these people, i instead benefit from their labors and simply use their free programs and listen to their free music.

these activities i enjoy more than the last because i've actually toyed around with this stuff rather than simply reading about it occasionally and acting like i get it. it's really quite good. and thanks to the world of open-source software and cheap pc hardware, i too can act like i know what i'm doing and make lame digital music. that's what life's all about.

next on the list is talking about final fantasy. i've beaten two of them, vii and ix. although it did take a total of five years to do so, and that makes me less devoted than people who have beaten them twice in a few months. either way, talking about sephiroth with coworkers and peers undeniably adds weight to the nerd repertoire.
though to be fair, i'll need to beat the ones on nes before i can show my face in the presence of "devoted gamers." but this is enough for my brother to make fun of me, so it will do for now.



the last one i'll be discussing today, because we all know there are many things that could be discussed, is having a devotion to windows. i'm sure there will be at least a few mac users who read this (including my brother, who ironically knows windows much better than i do and still uses a mac), and will say that this is lame. well, fair enough. however, i still find it satisfying so i'll keep doing it.

my love for windows comes from learning it as i tried and tried to customize it. and although it was confusing at times, it was letting me do it. i enjoyed that. tinkering with settings (even if they are unimportant) makes me feel like i'm kind of like a h4xx0r, even though in reality there's no such connection at all.
i compare this to my experience with a mac. once again, i'm sure there are plenty of people who will disagree with me (and that's fine. you can even post about it if you like. go ahead. leave a scathing comment.), but i simply feel like macs assume i'm an idiot and that i'm too ignorant to be able to control anything important myself.
it should be noted that i've never actually owned a mac. however, i have used them, and i have used their software, and i've hated essentially all of it... with this being the case, the more i act like i could never so much as touch a mac, the more i feel like i have a nerd identity that defines me. and that goes a long way in filling the aforementioned void. also, it bothers me that you can only "click" and not right or left click. it's like having one pedal for both braking and accelerating.

and don't worry, my-computer-science-major friends, i'll be learning linux this summer.




and thus completes this post. chances are you disagree with the mac bit, think less of me for reading a world of warcraft blog, or are confused why i enjoy digital music as much as i do. or all of these. but either way, if you feel like a part of you is missing, maybe you'll find it in one of these locations. good luck.