Twilight

Lately, there's been a storm of resentment building up in me against the whole twilight phenomena. The movie turned out to be such a big deal that I went, grudgingly, with a friend and sat through it. And over the last couple of days, during the trip to Seattle, we've burned through an audiobook version of New Moon, the second book in the Twilight series. I'm not sure why we listened to that before popping in To Kill A Mockingbird, a much appreciated change in pace. It was mostly for Andy's sake, who slept through most of it, due to illness. Of course, I doubt he had sincere interest in listening to the book either. More likely, he was listening to it to gain the infinite female appeal that twilight readership seems to carry with it.

After finishing the last, fourteenth disc of the book (which seemed an ungodly length for a relatively uneventful book), Mom made her own observations. Coining the term from Dad: Bubble Gum, she called it. Tastes alright, but no substance. Now I'm not necessarily against bubble gum media. It can be fun from time to time.

But this has gotten out of hand.

I haven't met a girl who hasn't gotten defensive or irrational when the quality of Twilight came into question. Often, I've heard excuses along the lines of, "You just don't get it. There's a special bond between Bella and Edward. It's true love." THEY'RE TEENAGERS! And what's more annoying is seeing girls almost worship this fictional character in all of his fantastic beauty. I've seen way too many pictures of Edward (from the movie) posted up in girl's locker. I can almost understand it. I mean, this seems to have struck a soft spot in just about every girl alive, the soft spot for romanticism and sentimentalism.

But it's still gotten out of hand.

It also wouldn't be so bad if the book series could actually claim to be a good influence. It's tried to make it's claim as a good influence, but it's not. Edward is abusive, Bella is unhealthy, and the culture that the book's popularity has formed is frightening, and frighteningly large. I know I'm biased, but at least I'm sort of backed up. This book review is from national review online. Here's the link.

If you don't feel like wading through it, here's the final summary.

In the final analysis, Meyer has deprived her characters of both choices and consequences. And young readers are left with the image of a girl who discovers her own worth and gets all she ever wanted, by giving up her identity and throwing away nearly everything in life that matters.

That’s scarier than any vampire.

Yes. Yes it is.

But, if you've seen the movie and are looking for a good laugh at it's expense, here's another link.

Expect pictures of the road trip coming up...

Weekend In McCall: On The Road Again

Here is the final chapter of my McCall quadrology (yes I made that word up). But anyway, read through the last few, because this one may be a little bit dull. This is the day that Mom, Dad, Andy, Julie, Brian, Billy, and Annie, and I all pack up and go home.

There's not much to say about the actual packing up, except that it was accompanied by the normal "where's all my stuff" panic and the normal "you should have kept track of your things" scolding from Mom. Sometimes I wonder if my family is normal... I know that I'm not.

And this of course was accompanied by the normal shuffle into the cars. Back to the long drive home. Like I've said in the first chapter of the quadrology, the road is unnerving and difficult. This was not helped by the fact that we were driving in blizzard conditions. Usually the drive takes two hours, and this time it took two and a half. All I could do was listen to my iPod.

Julie, Brian, Billy, and Annie split up with us once we rolled into Boise to visit Kurt & Amy & Ali (Brian is Dad's brother and Amy is Dad's sister, so all three are siblings). We went home and I started working on my homework. Of course, distraction is a dangerous game, and I often end up wasting hours off-topic. Yeah, it happened again. I'm acutally supposed to do homework right now...

Julie & Brian and their kids are staying with us tonight and they'll be gone on Tuesday. So there's the happy ending to the McCall quadrology...

A Weekend in McCall: On The Road Again

(The House In McCall)

It's Thursday. Today, at lunch, my parents whisked me away so we could spend the rest of the week and weekend in McCall with some of my relatives. This was easier said than done; lunch was a total mess. It was tip-off takedown week (some ping-pong club tourney thing) and they had a 'mix-it-up lunch'. Basically, we were supposed to sit at random, assigned seats so that we sat next to new people. The prize was ice cream, but as I was leaving, I was able to convince Mr. Vitrano to give me the benefit of the doubt and packed me with a popsicle.

I climbed into the car and we started heading out. Before going, I met up with my family back at home and had a little lunch. By the way, the extended family is Brian, my uncle and author of Switch 2 Plan B, Julie, his wife, Billy, their son, and Annie, their daughter. All in all a completely enjoyable family. We had tomato soup and shuffled into our cars to start the long drive toward McCall.

The drive usually takes about two hours on an unnerving road. That is to say, nearly half of the drive is a couple of feet from a rushing river, sharp rocks, death, death, and more death. But I'm of course used to this and soon fell asleep and woke up in McCall two hours later, parked next to our cabin.

Shortly following the unpacking, we got into our ski clothes and yet again scuffled into the car, off to The Activity Barn. It's this nice little tubing hill a few miles from McCall. You go really friggin' fast, trust me. I feel sorry for Annie - she really didn't enjoy it. It's just that none of those guys were really used to the snow (They're Californians). As opposed to me, who has always been a skiier and always had white winters. It really makes a difference.

At any rate, we went home, freezing and wet, after about an hour or so of tubing. We plan to do something fun tomorrow as well. I can't wait...