Edmund

Vagabond

My temporary space:

Torture(d)

Movies shown at the bus during the very, very long trip: Snow Buddies (shown twice!—the puppies were really cute, though); Imagine That (I kept reminding myself as I saw the atrocity: “What doesn’t kill you can only make you stronger”); and According to Greta (with Hilary Duff). I kinda liked the last one—but “kinda” should be emphasized. I’ve always thought that Hilary Duff is a spitting image of Ai-Ai de las Alas.

The hills are alive . . .

Remind me to put a copy of The Sound of Music’s soundtrack in the car, so that I could put it on the CD player every time I drive through the Gros Morne National Park:

Pardon the blurry picture, though. It was taken from inside the car, through a very dirty windshield. I was afraid to come out. The wind was so violent.

Signs

I’m fast becoming a fan of the (interesting) slogans posted regularly at our neighborhood Pentecostal church. I check the billboard every time I drive by. Though I sometimes disagree with what most slogans say, I find most of them cute and really inspirational. Last week it was “No God, no peace. Know God, know peace.” This week’s sign really uplifted my drooping spirit: “God answers knee-mail.”

Much has already been said about the horrible devastation and the great need in Haiti, so I’m not going to say anything more. But I did see the Hope for Haiti Now telethon last Friday. I stayed up late to see this particular performance/performer:

I’m officially pissed at Amazon.com

20 January—I ordered 4 items from Amazon.com. One of these items is to be released on the 26th. I don’t mind waiting, so when I checked out I chose the “Group my items into as few shipments as possible” shipping preference.

21 January—I was notified, all of a sudden, that one of the items is shipping soon. Why only one? I wondered. The two other items that were already available could’ve been shipped along with that single item that’s now “on its way.” This means I need to pay extra for shipping! I’m not gonna waste money on that. So I e-mailed Customer Service and I got this response:

When you choose the option to “Group my items into as few shipments as possible,” we combine shipments where we can. Since we don’t always have all the items you order at the same fulfillment center, we can’t always send everything in one package.

because, (sic) __________ already entered the shipping process, and to help compensate you for any inconvenience caused, I issued a full refund for the shipping charges on this order in the amount of $4.23. This refund will appear as a credit to your Credit Card within 2-3 business days.

To fill your order as quickly as possible, we shipped order (#__________) from multiple fulfillment centers in separate shipments.

“Since we don’t always have all the items you order at the same fulfillment center, we can’t always send everything in one package.” What’s the use of the “Group my items into as few shipments as possible” then? They might as well remove it.

As of this writing, that one item that’s “shipping soon”—“soon” being 22 January—still hasn’t shipped.

I have another order awaiting shipment. I was told today that it will be sent on the 26th—the very same day when the rest of the other order will be sent. So, for practicality’s sake, I clicked the “Want to combine orders?” button. It said that it will be able to combine this order with the remaining items of the previous order—so I selected the two sets of orders and clicked the “Combine orders” button. And what did I get? “Important Message: The selected orders can not be combined with each other”! Maybe they’re coming from two different “fulfillment centers”—yeah, right! Remove that “Want to combine orders?” button already!

I’ve been a regular and loyal customer of Amazon—.com, .ca, .co.uk and even .fr and .de. But a regular and loyal customer means nothing to a giant such as Amazon. All I can do is stop buying anything from it. I have had many other unpleasant experiences with Amazon, but I didn’t learn. This time, I have had it! Once these orders are shipped, I’m boycotting Amazon for ever.

’Oy vey!

Here’s one reason why we (especially Christians!) should learn more about Judaism.

From Yahoo! Buzz™:

A 17-year-old passenger inadvertently caused a scare aboard a US Airways flight from New York to Louisville on Thursday morning. The young flyer, an Orthodox Jew, was wearing an article of clothing that some on the plane feared might be an explosive device.

In reality, it was a simple religious item called phylacteries. Here’s what happened. According to Reuters, another passenger mistook the phylacteries, also called a tefillin in Hebrew, for a bomb. Phylacteries consist of two leather boxes with straps attached. “Observant Jewish men are required to place one box on their head and tie the other one on their arm each weekday morning.”

When the alarmed passenger saw the phylacteries, he alerted the crew, and the plane was immediately diverted to Philadelphia. Once on the ground, authorities questioned the boy, and quickly determined the incident had been a false alarm. No arrests were made.

In the wake of the news, online searches on both “phylactery” and “tefillin” both surged from nothing into breakout status. Other related queries also quickly popped up. “What is a phylactery” and “tefillin pictures” were on top of peoples’ minds. Those who researched the religious item learned that the phylactery boxes contain prayers inside them.

Coming soon (but read it first)

Rosemary Sutcliff’s 1954 children’s novel, The Eagle of the Ninth, is being made into a movie. The Eagle of the Ninth is the first of the seven loosely-connected tales about Roman Britain. I’ve only read The Eagle of the Ninth and its follow-up, The Silver Branch:

The Eagle of the Ninth tells the story of Marcus Flavius Aquila, a young Roman soldier who is trying to find the truth behind the mysterious disappearance of his father’s legion, the Legio IX Hispana, in northern Britain.

Stills from the upcoming film version were all over the Internet last month. (See more pictures here.)

I don’t usually like Hollywood’s take on beloved literary classics, but I really want to see this one. I saw the ’70s BBC TV version once, and I thought that the lead actor looked and acted more like a dandy than a legionnaire. From the stills of the new film, we can see that Channing Tatum (who plays Marcus) has given the character some muscle and swagger.

The Master of Horror in color

A small watercolor shows Edgar Allan Poe with a slight hint of a smile. Read it here.

Just Breathe

1988 was my first year without any Madonna music—a rather boring year, music-wise. Great music started to pop up toward its end, though: Milli Vanilli, Paula Abdul—and Breathe, a British band, which instantly became one of my favorites. Breathe came out with only three hits and then disappeared. I think I still have the cassette tape of their album All That Jazz somewhere.

The video for How Can I Fall has got to be one of the most beautiful music videos ever. Aside from the song’s beautiful melody, the video is populated by a most good-looking cast:

Wearing hand-me-downs sharpened my creativity and fashion sense. Paupertas omnium artium repertrix! The hair and the clothes in the video for Don’t Tell Me Lies will give you an idea of how I dressed (or did with what I had) in the late ’80s—when I still had hair: