J.R.R. Tolkien, Astronomy and Anime
I am now officially a J.R.R. Tolkien fanatic. So far I've completed The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion, and am currently reading The Book of Lost Tales 1 and 2. Although he is most know for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, I'd say that The Silmarillion is what really got me hooked. Once I had complete LotR I read the appendixes, and I realized that Tolkien's world was much more complex, and much more vast than I had first thought. Then I read The Silmarillion. The Silmarillion made me realize that Tolkien's world was much more complex, and much more vast than I had I thought after reading the appendixes in LotR. One of the things that really brought this home (besides the fact that there are multiple fully developed languages, a ton of partially developed ones, and many thousands of years of history) was that at the end of The Silmarillion was a short section titled "Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age". Within this section the events from LotR took up a mere 3 pages of the 28 page section. That just three pages out of just twenty-eight in a book that is 445 pages! (or 366 if you don't count the appendixes, which I think would be a bad idea) Knowing this I realized just how much these histories could be expanded upon, and made in to books of their own. Tolkien's World is indeed a grand work of genius. And, of course, anything I begin to like as much as this I feel I must contribute to somehow. Therefore, I am working on making three skins for the awesome web browser Opera. The different skins will have the navigation icons display: the Elven language of Quenya with the Elven Tengwar alphabet, English in the Tengwar, and English in Rune Letters. I hope to have these completed soon, and I shall post an update once they are done.
In other news, there have been recent announcements of the discovery of a third moon orbiting Earth (that's right, third, not second), a ring around the Earth (like Saturn's, except this one is a lot harder to see, obviously), and a tenth planet in our solar system (with a strange name even I can't pronounce). Y'know, I always thought we'd kinda know these things by now.
In anime news: If you like anime, go buy/watch Arjuna (I believe the full title is Earth Girl Arjuna). It is awesome. Sure, the cover kinda makes it look like some kind of Sailor Moon knock-off, but trust me, it is not, and it's very damn cool.
Also in anime news, there is an American live-action remake of Akira being made. I am a big Akira fan, so news of this desecration frightened me to begin with, but then I heard they are going to make "a somewhat more accessible story [to Western audiences]." Oh, great, so they're going to remove the intelligence behind it, and make it another cheap sci-fi action flick? Then I heard that the director in charge is known for making crappy movies, and I just want to kick Katsuhiro Otomo for letting Hollywood bastardize his magnificent story. Ah well, I suppose the original version of the movie already hasd 80% of the good stuff cut out from the original Manga, what will another 19% hurt...? Ugh, stupid Americans.
Last of all Húrin stood alone. Then he cast aside his shield, and wielded an axe two-handed; and it is sung that the axe smoked in the black blood of the troll-gaurd of Gothmog until it withered, and each time that he slew Húrin cried: 'Aurë entuluva! Day shall come again!' Seventy times he uttered that cry. - The Silmarillion, pg. 231-32
