November 2009 Archives

Rygel was kind enough to gift me with the From Me to You Award, which was terribly kind of him.  I don't get many awards, so it's a pleasant surprise when it happens.

Of course, like any other award or meme, there are rules involved when you receive this reward.  So in an attempt to be (mostly) rule-abiding, I would like to do the following:

1. Thank Rygel again for his kindness.
2. Think up seven things my readers (hopefully) don't know about me and list them:
   1. I was considering going into the ministry back when I was a Christian.
   2. I was terribly shy growing up.
   3. I wanted a pet skunk when I was growing up.
   4. I also wanted a pet python when I was growing up.
   5. I can tune out almost anything if I'm reading, writing, or working on the computer.
   6. I used to want to be a lawyer, but mainly so I could eventually become a judge.
   7. I used to worry that no one really liked me.
3. Pass the award on to the following people.  (Sorry, I don't have a full seven.)
   • Erin
   • Marisa
   • Lauren
   • Yewtree

Tonight, I logged into Tagged to find the following message waiting for me:

Romans 6:23 "...the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord"... Do you know Him?

The person who sent it to me is not on my friends list, so I can only assume that he's sending this message to random people on Tagged.  This makes him the online equivalent of door-to-door evangelists.  In my mind, it also makes him the online equivalent of a telemarketer calling me to sell something I'm not looking to buy, a Mormon missionary knocking on my door, or a door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman (do they even have those anymore?).  In other words, like all those others, he's a minor annoyance.

I simply don't understand why people feel it is necessary or good to walk up to someone at random (or contact them online at random) and try to "sell" that person a particular religion.  To be frank, religion is far more important to me, and it's something I'm only interested in discussing with someone I have an established, fairly well-rounded relationship with.  Anything else is just someone looking to make their next "sale" and gets treated like every other salesperson that decides to peddle their wares to me unbidden.

Of course, I do pride myself on politeness.  I don't get nasty with telemarketers (unless they continue to press the matter after the polite "I'm not interested").  I don't get nasty with Mormon missionaries.  And I didn't get nasty with this guy.  In fact, I sent what I felt was a rather polite reply:

I'm sorry, but I have a policy against getting into evangelistic conversations with random strangers.  Please accept my best wishes and a blessing for a full life, however.

Bye. 

And with any luck, that'll be end of the whole thing.

Update:  As I was making this post, I received the following reply:

This weekend, I finished reading Wings of Wrath by C.S. Friedman.  Wrath is the second book in the author's new Magister Trilogy.  I found it a fantastic read, and I'm disappointed now that I have to wait the third book to come out.  (I had to buy wrath in hardcover because it's not even out in paperback yet.)

One of the things I absolutely love about Friedman's Magister Trilogy is her conceptualization of magic.  She describes magic as an act that draws upon and uses up the athra, the very fire of the soul, to work.  In the cases of witches, this means that every spell cast costs the witch moments of her life.  The first book, Feast of Souls, starts out with a witch who knows she's near the end of her life performing one last final act of magic.  This is after announcing years ago that she would do no more magic so that she might enjoy what little life she had remaining.  The town turned against her and she lived in solitude, until a woman came with her two small children to beg for her help.  The baby boy in her arms was sick with a plague that could kill everyone.  Here's part of that scene, as scene from the witch's perspective:

The log in the stove hadn't caught; the fire was dying.  Winter's chill seeped into thecabin and into her bones, and she let it.  There wasn't enough power left within her to keep her flesh warm and heal the boy as well.  Not that an witch with a brain would waste power on the former task anyway...no when there was wood to be burned.  The power was too precious to waste on simple things.  If only she'd understood that, in the youth of her witchery!  A tear coursed down her cheek as she remembered teh hundred and one little magics she could have done without, the tricks performed for pleasure or show or physical comfort.  If she could undo them all now, how much tme would they add up to?  Would they buy her another wee, another year of life?

Too late now, Death whispered.

Dying.  She was dying.  This is what it felt like, when the embers of the soul expired at last.  She could feel the last tiny sparks of her athra flickering weekly inside her.  So little power left.  How much time?  Merely minutes, or did she have all of an hour left to wonder if she had done the right thing?

A young girl, the sick boy's sister, witnessed that scene.  That girl is later introduced in the story as Kamala, the first woman to ever successfully become a magister, those sorcerors who have somehow learned to do magic without sacrificing their own lives.  They are ageless and can live practically forever.  Of course, what most people do not know is that the secret to the magisters' survival is that they have learned how to tap into and use other people's athra for their magic.

I'm anxious to read the final book of the trilogy, as Friedman has managed to weave some intriguing mysteries into the story.  I'm looking to find out who the magister Colivar really is, for example, and why he knows so much about the ancient souleaters, who have suddenly returned to the world of men.  Friedman has also hinted that there is a relationship between the magisters and those ancient beasts, and I'm anxious to find out the connections.

Is anyone besides me creeped out by the fact that the latest Barbie commercials are using Aqua's Barbie Girl song for the jingle?  I mean, if you listen closely to the lyrics, there's a rather creepy and critical undertone to the song.  I just find it weird that Mattel would want encourage people to associate their toy with the song.