Posts by Amy Gale
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Amy, Jolisa, James... I'll be there by noon tomorrow. Bake a cake, do something.
Come on over. If Dumb and Dumberer win I'll leave the key under the mat and a cake on the counter before I flee.
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I was terribly disappointed when it got to 6pm on Friday and we hadn't had any trick or treaters. Much second guessing ensued. Did we need to decorate? Were the neighborhood parents scared of us because we don't have kids? It was actually quite upsetting.
Nah, it was just a bit early. They turned up eventually. None of them recognized my costume but their parents were all appropriately terrified. Our candy even met with pleased approval.
It is odd to see how the US form of Halloween has infiltrated NZ over the last couple of decades. When I was in primary school we had a school party and dressed up and bobbed for apples and all that UK-type stuff. My family and about 5 others had a small-batch trick or treat setup where all the kids banded together and went to just those six houses. When I was 8 or 9 my friend convinced me there was much better loot to be had if you just went and knocked on random doors, but mostly we had to explain to people what we were doing and only the older people had sweets in the house, and theirs were all yucky flavours.
I feel kind of bad for hassling them now (although I take comfort in thinking that at least they wouldn't have been scared of us. Probably.)
It occurs to me suddenly that there are parallels with tertiary fees. If you're going to introduce the US tradition (fees, trick or treating) then you really need to introduce the full supporting structure (plenty of scholarships, leaving people alone if their porch light is off). Otherwise the whole thing is a mess and people resent it.
I'm with Danielle. If we're to have a US tradition, let's take Thanksgiving.
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I believe that voting on Tuesday is written into the Constitution, no?
Nah, it's just a regular ol' law. And even if it was in the Constitution, an amendment would 'only' need a 2/3 majority in both houses.
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Seriously, an argument for little bits of paper if ever I saw one.
Oh, but America is Far Too Special And Unique for paper to work.
(See also: voting on a Saturday, having a tolerable health care system, etc)
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In the pluses column, it has given us some useful catchphrases. I'm particularly fond of "Compu'er says naoooooo", and also "I am a lady. I do ladies' things".
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As a child, I loved one of her books so much that I made my mother go to the public library, say I'd lost the book, and pay for the replacement cost, just so I could keep it.
My [relationship redacted] did something similar with Nicholas Fisk's A Rag, A Bone and a Hank of Hair. Tsk tsk.
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This is why I haven't re-read Diana Wynne Jones's The Homeward Bounders, which I loved when I was about ten. I don't want to be disappointed by it now.
I reread that last week :) Wasn't disappointed.
Archer's Goon is still my favourite DWJ, though.
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__Henry James, Doris Lessing, Margaret Atwood, Owen Marshall__, Elizabeth Knox, Philip Roth, Italio Calvino, Jorge Luis Borges, Valdimir Nabokov, Keri Hume, Margaret Mahy, Don DeLilo, Michael Chabon, Toni Morrison, Witi Ihimaera, Virginia Woolf
Speaking of, I really liked Dreamhunter/Dreamquake.
YA books also seem to suffer a lot less from page-count creep, for whatever reason. There are exceptions of course - JKR, I'm looking at YOU...
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Ultra condensed classic Titus Andronicus in lolcat by a PA reader
I really can't decide whether to be proud or depressed that this is my most famous piece of writing. Both, perhaps.
Otherwise:
- Liquid Sky is the worst film I've ever seen.
- I seem to have mercifully blocked out all the bad novels I've read. I truly dislike The Rainbow Fish, however.