When Michael and I got engaged we had to start thinking about what our wedding would be like. As most everyone reading this will know, I’m an atheist and Michael’s agnostic, a traditional church wedding is out of the question. But I’m all about tradition, I love my diamond engagement ring, I want a white dress at my wedding. I just don’t want God.

So in our quest to find some spiritual base, we started looking into pagan groups in our area. Why pagan? Pagan groups tend to encompass many beliefs, and I thought that starting there would be good, maybe we could meet someone we trust and respect enough to marry us.

The results so far? One group Michael has gone to (men’s only night) seems good, we’re following up with it and might join a course with them later this year. Another group in the Delaware Valley seems to have some interesting people in it, and if they hold any good meetings we might check them out. But those groups aren’t what this post is about.

This post is about a semi-local group that we’ve had a bad experience with.

First off, it’s not a purely pagan group. They are all pagans, but there is little discussion about it. Most of what is posted is stupid forwards and plans for trips that friends on the list are taking. I deleted most of what I received, it was fairly useless fluff. They were holding “study groups” every couple of weeks though, and I was interested in one, so I stayed subscribed.

Secondly, some of the members have such horrible grammar and spelling that attempting to read their posts makes me cringe. It’s really that bad. And there is plenty of caps abuse, I felt like I was reading something written by an angry 12 year old.

Now I tried not to hold this against them. There are very smart and enlightened people in the world that have terrible english skills.

I quickly realized they were not part of the smart and enlightened.

About a week ago a very offensively sexual and racist “joke” was forwarded to the list. I’m not easily offended, but this one hit a nerve. First off, I couldn’t believe I was associated with people who would drop that sort of thing in my inbox. Secondly, it’s from a pagan group! A group that is supposed to be inclusive of all people and cultures, accepting of all views (this isn’t just my assessment, they say this on their main page). The “joke” bothered me so much that I mentioned it to Michael, who is also subscribed but hadn’t seen it.

Michael was the one who followed up on it, emailing the poster directly, asking why such a racist joke was sent to a theoretically friendly, public list.

The mail was sent back to the list, and it turned into a flame fest. It turns out that the group is not as accepting as they claim to be. Not only did they defend the woman who posted the joke, they accused everyone who piped up and agreed that it was offensive of being “thin-skinned” and encouraged us to “just delete” things we found offensive.

Just delete it? Clearly these aren’t the kind of people I want to be associated with. I unsubscribed.

Sigh, religion. This is the sort of nonsense that made me a private practicer of spirituality in the first place. Hopefully these other groups we’ve found will prove to me more to my liking.

Michael set up SquirrelMail for me this weekend. Previously I was unable to check my princessleia.com email address at work, but now I can! It’s a pretty basic web mail service, looks and feels a lot like Yahoo! did way back in the day.

Michael mentioned a few days back that he wished google would release it’s gmail code so we could implement that. mutt is far superior to any web mail, but I must agree with him there, gmail is the best web mail I’ve ever used, SM could use some improvements.

It’s so great to be able to check my mail from work. Maybe I’ll even be able to start reading lists in a timely manner again.

Last night I went to see Star Wars again. I couldn’t help it, Michael was at work all day and I spent the day hanging out with a friend who brought over the Clone Wars cartoon dvds (which I hadn’t seen). When Michael called to say he’d be home very late said friend mentioned that it was ashame we didn’t know earlier, because we could have gone out to see Star Wars in the IMAX.

“Well, we still can!”

So we called up a couple other friends. Unfortunately the IMAX showings were sold out (probably have been for days, there are no Sunday ones either). But the normal theater ones were not sold out. We all headed out to Bennigans for dinner, then got to the theater for an 11pm showing.

The theater wasn’t *too* packed, we were about 25 minutes early and got good seats.

It was fun to see on the big screen again, and the sound was better in KOP than it was at Warrington Crossing. You can’t beat the midnight showing crowd though, not much cheering during this one %)

We got out of the theater around 1:30, got home around 2, Michael came home shortly after I did (yay!).

Today I think we’re just going to hang out here at home together. I want to do some reading. *yawns and wanders off*

My batch number stamp was getting dry, so I asked the woman in the cubicle next to mine if she knew how to refill it. She showed me were to turn the screw on the side of it and gave me the tiny bottle of black ink that is used to refill it. She warned me that it might drip, so I should have some paper towels ready.

I started filling it up, kept putting drops in, how many drops fill up this thing anyway? More drops.

Oh no! It’s leaking out the other side.

It was a mess. I’m glad I had that pile of paper towels.

By the end of it I had three people in my cube all making useless comments “that’s not supposed to happen” “I think it’s broken” “Mine’s never done that.” Gah!

I washed my hands for 10 minutes, but I still have a purple shadow of ink on most of my fingertips, arg.

I’m so glad it’s friday.

And I’m glad I took the whole day off yesterday. I was able to get some cleaning done, finally paint a spackled patch in the TV room, read for a bit, catch up on emails, chat a bit. It was all very relaxing.

I don’t have plans for the weekend, Michael has to go into work to run some wires on Saturday and/or Sunday %\ I don’t even have plans for this evening, we usually have movie night but AFAIK no one has piped up and said anything about it this week. Maybe I’ll hunt down someone with a copy of episode 1 and hang out on my couch all day Saturday watching all the Star Wars %)

The midnight showing was fun, I brought my stuffed animal ewok. There were people dressed up, people with lightsabers, and as always at midnight showings, cheering and clapping at appropriate times in the film, and that really adds to the excitement. You’re in a theater packed with 300 other people who are just as pumped as you are.

And now my ticket collection for all three midnight showings is complete!

But of the movie itself? It’s difficult to explain without giving away some things, read further at your own risk!

R2D2 rocks, but I was annoyed with him flying in the first place, some of the things he did in this film were amusing, but absurd.

Jar Jar Binks walked through a few scenes, but wasn’t a player in the film, yay!

C3PO didn’t have nearly enough camera time.

The way Darth Sidious gets his scarring is lame.

General Grievous was cool.

The way Anakin gets hurt and must take on the familiar Darth Vader suit was cool.

Still no chemistry between Anakin and Padme, which made their split all too predictable and dull.

Yay Chewbacca!

What about Leia’s memories of her mother? Grr.

They concentrated too hard on linking 3 with 4, there were lots of “ooh so that’s how/why!” moments, but I’m not sure how good the movie will feel on subsequent viewings, I think it’ll get old.

I’m so sick of mediocre CG fighting/action scenes.

Ewan McGregor still makes an awsome Obi-Wan.

They touched a nerve with the killing of the Jedi, some of those scenes were pretty hard to take.

As a whole it was better than the other two prequels, but still can’t touch the original trilogy.

Holy crap.

PrincessLeia.com is getting tons of traffic. Over 12,000 hits yesterday, usual is half that, or less.

For once my Star Wars sections rival my mplayer how-to for popularity.

I guess I should have anticipated this %)

On my way to work there was a report on NPR about Star Wars. *glee* They were interviewing people who were camping out for it. They had some quotes from critics saying it’s better than the first two prequels, and that fans would be happy with this “final” installment. Then they had a full review, which we silenced the radio for, I don’t want to know anything about it!

Do I dare to hope it’ll actually be good?

After work we’re going home to chill for a while, perhaps take a nap ;) We’ll be meeting Bob at Houlihans for dinner around 9. After dinner we’ll be heading over to the theater. Then waiting in line for a while. It should be quite an event, maybe I’ll bring my camera.

This work day is going by too slowly!

We got around to watching Long Game, the 7th episode of the new Doctor Who series yesterday afternoon. It was great, and it had Tamsin Greig (Fran from Black Books) and Simon Pegg (Shaun of Shaun of the Dead)! Ah good stuff. I love this new series, we have episode 8 too, might watch it tonight. Definitely need to do a Doctor Who movie night sometime soon %)

Only a couple more days until Episode 3. The other day I picked up a box of frosted flakes and inside was a “lightsaber spoon” and I got all excited. I know, we’ve been burnt twice before by crappy Star Wars prequels, but it’s Star Wars I can’t help being all brainless about it.

What a year it’s been. 2005 is like, year of the geeky media releases. New, real, Doctor Who series after years of waiting, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy after 20+ years of waiting, last Star Wars installment, all the hype around Serenity, Wallace and Gromit feature film in October.

I don’t think I’ve ever had a year where I was getting all giddy about something so often.

Yesterday I got very little acomplished. Usually I’d be annoyed by my lack of acomplishments, but I’ve just been so busy lately, I wanted to chill out for a day and have a couple beers. So I got caught up on email, chatted a bit, and started scoping out cars. Since I’m being hired by this company and getting a raise, I think it’s time to get one. I don’t want to get a junker that I can’t depend on, I want something that’ll just go for a few years.

I started looking at tiny cars. The Toyota Echo is super cheap, but after looking at a few lousy reviews I moved away from that, if I wanted a piece of crap I’d expand my search to include domestic cars, hah! I looked at some used cars, but the certified used cars I looked at are all still up there in price. I ended up at the Honda site and looking at Civics. Civics are nice, dependable cars, and they aren’t very expensive. I think it’s precisely what I’m looking for. I’ll keep looking over the next month or two, go to a couple dealerships to do test drives, save money for a down payment.

*Yawn* I should get back to work.

I’ve had another busy week. Monday I stayed late at work. Tuesday we drove out to Lancaster for a pagan meetup that didn’t pan out, a real disappointment, but on our way home we stopped for dinner at The Drafting Room in Exton to have a nice dinner. Wednesday and Thursday night.. what did I do? Checked out my brain and relaxed. Friday night we went over to and ‘s place for movie night, where we watched about half the season of Firefly (I’ve seen it) in anticipation for the second Serenity prerelease screening that’s taking place on May 26th, which I’ll go see too if there is a spare ticket. We stayed at their place until 3 am watching Firefly, it was a good night.

Yesterday I could only sleep in until 9, spent the morning reading The White Dragon.. and her sister picked me up around 2 and we headed over to and ‘s place for a baby shower. It was nice, but hot, stupid weather, we went down in their basement to hide from the heat for a bit %) We left around 5:30 and got home so Michael and I could head down to the city.

The traffic was terrible, took us nearly 2 hours to get down to the city, most of which was spent in traffic on 76. Yuck. But we got down to Philly, found a parking space and got to the Jonn Serrie concert on time, even had a few minutes to pick up a copy of And the Stars Go With You, an essential Serrie CD.

The concert was amazing! The first 45 minutes flew by, I couldn’t believe it when he stopped and called for intermission. That’s when I brought the cd up for him to sign, I was grinning like an idiot, but he was quite nice %)

YAY!!!

The rest of the show was great too, I had a really nice time. I’m so glad Michael introduced me to his music, he’s my favorite space music artist of all %)

The show ended a little before 11. When we got home at midnight I went right to bed, long day.

Today we don’t have plans, but it’s supposed to be damp, possibly with showers. I’ll probably just pay some bills, play on the computer, read for a bit… Just relax.

*wanders off*

Friday night was movie night. Since Michael had other plans I invited everyone over to our house for the evening, Baerana, b2s and mj ended up coming over. We had pizza, peach lambic, and watched the last season of Coupling. It was a good night.

Yesterday morning I got up and went out to work on the yard in the late morning. Weeded the gardens, planted my herb garden, trimmed back some of the bushes that had overgrown. Michael got out the lawn mower, changed the oil and mowed the lawn. By the afternoon we were both pretty tired. I took a shower and sat down to read for a while.

Around 3 we got ready to head to Unos, where we were meeting Bob, Baerana, b2s and mj for an early dinner. Afterwards we headed over to the Warrington Crossing Regal to go see The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Yay! We got in for the 6:10 showing.

It started out great. Martin Freeman made a perfect Arthur Dent, Mos Def made a great Ford Prefect. I’m delighted that they used puppets for the Vogons, there has been too much bad CG lately. I didn’t like Zooey Deschanel for Trillian at first, but she grew on me as the movie went on. And I think Sam Rockwell played an appropiately annoying Zaphod Beeblebrox, but I hated how they did his second head. It was great that they got Peter Jones back to do the voice of the book (he was the voice in the radio show as well). And Marvin didn’t disappoint, he was perfect. There were a lot of parts I really enjoyed, one being the world construction plant scene, it was dazzling,he intro was good too. And a mini light saber that cut bread into toast, hahaha! Excellent.

But enough the little things, what did I think of it as a whole? I knew going into it that it wouldn’t be true to the story, so I won’t hold that against it. But it was bit too Americanized, once again a studio aims for a US audience even when the story is fundamentally British. Sigh. And the Trillian and Arthur romance becoming a central theme, what’s that all about? Why do they ALWAYS need to have some sort of romantic tension in a story? That one scene where Trillian was in the shower was completely useless! I groaned! But it could have been much worse. When it’s all said and done I approve, it did justice to the HHG legacy. I think Douglas Adams would be proud.

While we were at the theater we also picked up our Episode 3 tickets:

I tried to get our friends to all agree on one theater, but no one responded so I made the executive decision to go to Warrington Crossing, which is where we also saw Episode 2. Bob bought a ticket too, so even if everyone else decides to go elsewhere we’ll have Bob with us, and that’s fine %) Yay Star Wars! I took May 19th off so I don’t need to worry about going into work after seeing it, that wouldn’t be any fun.