The round up

Not that it's an excuse, but I started working again, hence the lack of blog posts.

[sigh]

I forgot how hard it is to conjure up that ol' writing inspiration after facing a computer all day long.

BUT no need to dwell on the excuses. Let's hit a much delayed round up of internet lusts.

To read: I've been on a military kick. It started off with Jon Krakauer's latest reportage: Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman. Tillman is a man that some of the best and strongest characters are made of so, it would be difficult not to cling to this real-life tragedy.

However, Krakauer's clear and present distaste for the Bush administration muddled my reading of the book, especially in the beginning. But the combination of Krakauer's obvious intense and thorough reporting of the football star-turned army Ranger and Tillman himself shines through. By the end I was tearful and shocked by the guy's inevitable fate.

I became obsessed with Tillman. Googling him and his wife and his family. I came across some good (read: sad) articles just after his death and found (basically what I was looking for) the hope that this would soon be a movie that I could hide behind my hands and watch and weep. Get excited. And by exited of course I mean depressed.

Some time during my deep Google search, my former teacher twittered about this New York Times article about the breadth of first-hand writing that is coming out of the war. The article does, as he noted, have the best lead. How can you NOT continue reading on?

To top it all off it was Presidents Day yesterday and there appeared to be a multitude of soldiers returning home from war footage/photography. Like this one in the Chicago Tribune. [Tear]

To watch: Ultimately all of this war talk led to the dvd that happened to be on the top of our queue: Hurt Locker. It should be noted that this is not my kind of flick as it grossly lacks the romantic/comedy/cartoon prequisites of my movie entertainment. Buuuuut everyone said it was amazing and I still had Tillman on my mind so I sat down (behind my computer screen) to take it all in.

I'm a wimp with movies but this was playing directly at my tightly wound heart strings. Especially when the lead befriends this adorable kid selling smutty DVDs - there's really only one place for that relationship to end and yet I was still surprised when things turned glib (in, of course, the retelling of the story by R as I was in the bedroom busying myself with distractions). Anyhoo, for those of you with stronger stomachs and nerves DO definitely test it out.

To long for and finally, totally separate from any war stuff, how AMAzing is this knitted hat?


I saw some kid riding his bike with it on and I thought: GENIUS. It's perfect for R and his wintery bike-to-school jaunts. I think the 'Grandpa edition' will suit him just fine and will certainly compliment my 'Bunny edition'. Won't we be a sight. Totes happening when I get paid.

finally, FINally to cuddle:
This guy



and this guy



Get into it.

xoxoL