Let It Glow

to the tune of "Let It Snow"

Oh the raptors outside are frightful,
But my pyre is so delightful,
And since we've no place to go,
Let it glow, let it glow, let it glow.

They show no signs of stopping,
And their heads are all a-bopping.
We need to stay way down low,
Let it glow, let it glow, let it glow.

When they finally leave for the night,
It's time to go out and find the holes
And if we really plug them tight,
We'll be safe on the morning patrols!

The pyre is slowly dying,
The victims, still are crying.
But as long as they've turned to go,
Let it glow, let it glow, let it glow.

Warning Bells

Warning Bells
(to the tune of "Jingle Bells")

Oh, warning bells, warning bells
Shrieking through the town
Run and hide, get out of sight
And don't dare make a sound
Warning bells, warning bells
Klaxons all resound
Here they come! Go, now, and hide
And don't dare make a sound.

Chomping through the snow
Raptor blitzkreig is this day
O'er the fence they go
Snarling all the way
Bells on triplines ring,
Making children cry
What hell it is to hope and pray
We don't all die tonight!

Oh, warning bells, warning bells
Shrieking through the town
Run and hide, get out of sight
And don't dare make a sound
Warning bells, warning bells
Klaxons all resound
Here they come! Go, now, and hide
And don't dare make a sound.

Raptormas will continue on Monday.

Up on the Rooftop

Up on the rooftop, raptor claws
Along with teeth and gaping maws
Tear throught the ceiling with lots of joy
With just one intent, to destroy!

Chorus
Oh, God, no! Who wouldn’t go?
Oh, God, no! Who wouldn’t go!
Up on the rooftop, quick, quick, quick!
Hand me some ammo, and my ice pick!

First comes a snout, then baleful eyes.
Gnashing teeth, I'm not surprised
Give me a chainsaw, or a propane torch
If they come close - What's on the porch?!

Repeat Chorus

Now through the window, (heart be still)
Three more creatures we'll have to kill!
Here is a grenade and some nerve gas
Hope it works and scream, "You shall not pass!"

Repeat Chorus

Monkeying around

I bought a monkey mask on a stick while I was at Joann's on Saturday. Since it was a whole buck, and it kept me entertained while I waited for my friend to drag herself out of the cross-stitch section (I ended up dragging her out instead), I decided to splurge. So far, I have had more fun with the mask than with the cross-stitch kit or silicone mold I bought.

Be forewarned, I can now make chocolate hearts.

But this monkey mask is totally awesome. Especially given that I will take the mask with me somewhere and hide it behind my back. After I start chattering with someone, I wait for them to look away and then whip it out (the mask). The reactions are awesome. If I cared more, I might start trying to video this process, but for now, it's a private pleasure. Unless you try it yourself. Pictures may follow.

Also, I may have to go do this out at Red Rock, soon, because if Jim Rhodes gets his way, it will shortly become nigh impossible to drive out to Red Rock Canyon, as he is trying to build a community on top of the old gypsum mine (side note, does building things on top of an old mine sound like a good idea to you?). The Clark County Planning Commission will be meeting on Wednesday to decide if they are are to change the rules to accomodate a developer that filed for bankruptcy last year. I hate to break it to you Jimmy-boy, but the economy has not turned around yet. I don't think people are looking for luxury homes with a view of Red Rock quite yet.

Particularly when there are a pile of foreclosed homes you can pick up cheap these days.

In case you think Jimmy-boy is an ass, feel free to sign the petition telling the CCPC what you think. I'm going to the meeting Wednesday to view the spectacle, hopefully I won't go crazy watching.

Argument Form That I am Sick of

Still working on the health care bill. Damn, that thing is long.

Anyway, I heard this a lot in college, and I still hear it now. And it irritates the shit out of me.

Person A: Argument A.

Person B: Actually, Argument B. I know that you're wrong, because I used to be Argument A, and I was really self-righteous about it. Then, I had Experience B, which changed my perspective, and I am now Argument B. Don't worry, I understand how you feel. I don't judge you for it, but sooner or later, you'll Experience B, or something similar, and you'll change, too.

Post Mortem

June has been a rough month for deaths.

A handful of celebrities and a few other notable people have passed, including my favorite author, David Eddings.

It's not that I am sad at his death (it is inevitable), or "the waste" (he was just shy of 78), or that "his voice was silenced" (His last novel was published shortly before his wife and collaborator died two years ago.).

I'm not sad, exactly. When I found out that he had died, I started thinking about my memories of his books. I started reading them a bit earlier than most people, although that might have been mostly due to my mother's frustration.

I'm not sure exactly when I learned to read. I know that I was doing word searches before I was in school, and I could sight-read (and sound out parts of) a lot of those words. (My grandmother used to cut out the children's word searches out of the newspaper for me.)

I know that I was reading in kindergarten, because I remember sitting with my teacher and her helping me with the words I didn't know. The school district I grew up in used phonics to supplement regular reading and language arts lessons, and by second grade, I had a good grasp on how to sound words out, and we used the classroom set of dictionaries often enough that I could look up any word was unsure of.

I think our language arts lessons might have been skewed towards the practical--we learned fairly early how to use context clues to guess at the meaning of unfamiliar words, but I do not know what the parts of speech are beyond noun, verb, adverb, and adjective. I'm sure there are more, but as I am not an English teacher, I don't let it keep me up at night.

The early lessons in context clues were extremely useful. A grade-school child can easily become frustrated with flipping through a dictionary every few paragraphs, but being able to think "Oh, that's a color...that's an emotion" makes dictionaries optional to understanding the story. Of course, when you understand the meaning of the word, sometimes your pronunciation falls short. My parents still tease me about some of my verbal mishaps. It turns out that the way it sounds in your head doesn't always match with the rest of the world.

The first time I really started reading was in second grade, when my aunt bought me a beautifully illustrated book of fairytales for Christmas. There was not a picture on every page, but all of them were lovely. The stories themselves were about halfway between Disney and Grimm. There weren't a lot of gory details, but not all of the endings were that happy, and some fairly awful things happened to the characters. This was definitely not the Little Mermaid who was chased around by a guppy and a crab. I was entranced. I finished the fairly thick book, and wanted to read more.

I started reading, a lot.

I went through the American Girls series's. I tore through Boxcar Children and Babysitter's Club. I didn't like Nancy Drew. As the town library was small, and not overly stocked, buying new books was the only way to keep in fresh reading material. My family was far from rich, so my mother started picking and choosing which of her books I was allowed to read. The bodice-rippers ended up in one pile, and everything else in the other.

My mother read me the first chapter of The Hobbit (it was too boring), the first chapter of Watership Down (it didn't make sense to me), and finally, the prologue of Pawn of Prophecy. That one got my attention. While I was only 8 at the time, I could see the similarities between that world and my Sunday School lessons. They were different, but there were similarities. I thought it was interesting.

I dived, headfirst, into Garion's world.

The themes fascinated me. The storytelling kept my attention. Eddings's somewhat dry wit and narrative voice appealed to me enormously (which might explain my occasionally odd sense of humor).

It took me almost a year to finish the first volume (the first three books) of The Belgariad. I wanted to read the second volume, but my mother didn't know where it was. I went back to the Babysitter's Club, but ideas about justice, morality, evil, and the power of the mind simmered in the back of my head.

That year, the same aunt who infected me with the reading bug in the first place, tracked down the last two books the series, and gave them to me for my birthday. She is still my favorite aunt to this day. Sacrifice and redemption were added to the ideas that were floating in the back of my mind.

As I grew up, I learned how to get the books I wanted, and I eventually collected the entire saga of Garion. I started to read Sparhawk's story, but it didn't interest me. Sparhawk was a crabby, middle-aged knight, while Garion was raised on a farm, and wasn't much older than me.

I ended up reading The Losers.

I thought it was awful. For some reason, I read it again. And a few more times. It was different. In the Belgariad, everything was laid out, rather simply. Understanding the Raphael's story was like pulling teeth. And yet, I wanted to figure it out. The message I finally pulled from the book shaped my general morality, to this day.

I eventually got back to Sparhawk, and the rest of his books, but I could see the flaws in them, and appreciate them anyway. The storytelling was comforting. The style and voice were like and old T-shirt that fits just right.

When Eddings died, his obituary (on a book website) listed his published works. I had read all but his first novel. Since it was completely out of print, I went to the library, to track it down by ILL if necessary.

The librarian who helped me with my request was upset when I told her that Eddings had died; it turned out that she and her husband hit it off on their first date when they discovered they were both fans.

I understood her sorrow, but I didn't really feel the same way. It's not that I'm glad he died, but come on: he was pretty old, his wife had died, and it's not like he promised to stick around forever.

I finished High Hunt a few days ago. The story was...something else, but the narration was nearly identical to the voice I remembered. And that's what I miss.

It wasn't the stories, it was the storyteller that made the difference all along.

Operation Catch-a-Creep

I found out today that my landlord likes to snoop while I'm at work.

This is very, very far from okay.

I have just configured my webcam to kick on and record when the motion sensor is activated. I have a feeling that I will have incriminating recordings in another month.

The only question left is, "What should I do with this video evidence of illegal activity?"

And since I fixed my webcam, one picture, for Amanda.

I have a new goal.

I used to be so ...effluent... I'm not even sure that's the word I want to use. Nope, it's not. I just looked it up, it's totally not the word, since the definition is "water mixed with waste matter". The second definition is "that is flowing outward", so maybe I wasn't completely out of my mind. I know a few writer-types that are rolling their eyes as they read this, which just showcases their talent. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to roll your eyes while you are actually reading?

The point is that I used to write longish, occasionally funny and interesting articles, at least once a week. Now, if I write once a month, it's remarkable. Which is my new goal, by the way. To post once a month. I was originally going to shoot for once a week, but, yeah, right. Just so we're clear, this counts for May.

So, my recent projects include: the quilt from Hell, my first pair of baby booties, still unpacking, and fixing furniture. The furniture is my priority project, which means I work on it until I get bored, then I go do something else. That doesn't really sound like it's a priority, but when it's the first thing I do when I get home from work, it actually gets the most work done on it. Except for the booties, but they only took me an hour, and therefore do not count.

The quilt from Hell slowly earned its name by failing at everything. Since I've started, I have coincidentally taken my sewing machine apart three times to fix it. Now, this really isn't the quilt's fault, because the stress on the machine is my fault for using the materials I chose. But I wanted it to be perfect and special, and I have learned my lesson. I would post pictures, but this isn't the project site, and I don't want my cousin to see it before I finish it. She already knows of its existence, which is bad enough, but I don't want to reveal what it actually looks like until I hand her a peculiarly-shaped package. I am optimistic, based on the currert rate of production, that I will finish before May of 2015.

A friend of mine from high school just had a baby, and I decided to make a pair of booties for her. They are green and super-cute, at least they will be, when I grab some more lady-bug buttons since mine are not to be found. I would post pictures, but they are not finished.

I moved, over a month ago, now, and I am still not completely unpacked. Part of it is a storage problem, and part of it is I don't care anymore. At my last apartment, I had plenty of storage space, never mind that I created it. In addition to having less closet space, my bathroom is smaller (That means all of the "bathroom cabinet stuff" is in my linen closet, which now has 2 out of 6 shelves allocated to actual linens. Girly fail.) and I got rid of my desk. My apartment is pretty small, and there really wasn't room for a kid-desk. Plus, a guy at work just got two teenage fosters, and he sort of needed it. So, most of the unpacked stuff is actually waiting on furniture to hold it. I would post pictures, but who cares?

Lastly, in the furniture department: I received a dresser, a coffee table, an entertainment center, and a sewing table. The dresser is old, and it took me almost a month to clean and fix it. I had to re-assemble the back, reattach the drawer runners, re-assemble the drawers, and fix the bottom. I actually gave up on fixing the bottom (decorative feet with little to no hope of being load-bearing) and just propped it up on old textbooks that I dis-like. (Hint: one of these was used as a doorstop. While I was actually in the class.)

The coffee table is huge, and I already have one, so it's my last in queue project, because I'm not sure that I'll keep it when I finish it. It depends on how big it is with the room actually finished.

The entertainment center was originally going to be a quick fix: I was going to slap a coat of green paint on it, since I detest red, which is its current color. And then my aunt told me that it was oak underneath the paint. Due to that, I have been laboriously sanding off red paint for...forever, it seems like. When I finish, it will get a coat of stain and laquer, and I will be middle-aged.

Lastly, the sewing table was taken apart by someone who wanted to refinish it and put it back together, but wasn't capable of the "put it back together" phase. C'est la vie. When I finish the entertainment center, I'll work on it.

Was there anything I forgot? Probably. But I'm sure I'll mention it sooner or later, either that or it wasn't important.

I had to cave sometime.

Last night, Lucifer gave me an Apple.

How is this okay?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6022878.ece

I have no problem with burqas. To be precise, I have no problem with women who want to wear a burqa. Or hijab in general, if it's a choice. Hell, I tend to wear looser fitting clothes and higher necklines to work to avoid the eyes of creepy learing guy.

What I have a problem with is this scenario:

Old dude: Hey, wow, you're young enough to be my granddaughter and, damn, you are hot. Let's get married so that I can rape you and call it God's will.

17-year-old-girl: Like, no thanks.

One week later:

Old dude: She's an adulterer, I know she is! I will beat her, according to God's will! She will repent! (And I get off on it, since the bitch turned me down.)

If you want to live under Muslim law, that's fine. Good for you. You're a better person than me. But any place that has laws like this should have a choice: Either allow women who don't want this to leave peacefully, or never receive any foreign aid. It's a simple choice, respect human rights, or figure your shit out on your own.

I feel.

I try to avoid being a link-o-saurus, but...

If you have any interest in human emotion and perception, and expression thereof, you should check this out. I played with it for an hour last night. It is...fascinating.

http://www.wefeelfine.org/

In which I am clumsy.

Also, I went to the ER today. Whoops, I put a knitting needle through my foot. It didn't really hurt when I went (Endorphins are groovy), so I declined pain medicine. So, I'm on crutches, and the pain is starting to begin. Thankfully, the rum has already begun. I'm supposed to use the crutches until there is no pain whatsoever from putting my foot on the ground. Oh, and classes start tomorrow. Yippee.

In which I muse unprofitably.

I'm a bad friend.

I rarely update, and I respond to LiveJournal posts weeks late. It's not that I don't care, it's that I don't care.

Maybe that makes less sense.

The first issue: my failure to update. Every so often, I get a bee in my ear, and start typing hell-fire and brimstone, and after I fact-check (I always try to do this) about half-way through, I suddenly don't really care. 

For example, on Election Night, I didn't stay up to watch returns or speeches. About 7 pm, I saw that Obama was going to win, so I went to bed. So, I didn't see their speeches. Melanie posted Obama's though, and as I read it, the Bob the Builder song started playing in my head. I popped open my new-post window, and started typing. I tabbed back over to read it again, went back to my posting window, and didn't care anymore. 

I think my problems with posting have a source: My life is pretty boring now. I have a pretty decent job in my field. I am content. Also, what with the boring, I have no content. (Like the pun? Shut up, punning is a primary source of excitement in Aynsleyland.) I have no boundless frustration that needs an outlet. I'm happy. Also, funny stories from where I work are mostly nerdy in-jokes, that aren't really funny to anyone else. Except when the other Browncoat and I walked around in nitrile gloves, chanting "Two by two, hands of blue."

This apathy has spread to my checking of LiveJournal updates as well. I read my feeds from Google when they pop up, and I think that has made me slightly lazy. My e-mail tells me when Something*Positive updates. Checking LiveJournal requires me to log in, scroll through new updates until I find the last one I read, then scroll up. There is a solution, checking every day, but you people don't always update every day. And, I apologize in advance, but I don't count the updates primarily concerned with fanfic as updates, mostly because I don't have a clue what the hell ya'll are talking about. Not that I'm not glad that you have a hobby, it's just not important to me. 

Where was I? I'm fighting the urge to just delete this and go watch Narnia. Also, I think some of the melodrama problems that people sometimes have are catered to by the nature of Livejounal. The friending and commenting systems very much feed into melodrama, as do some communities. 

And, content? Over here. I don't feel the urge to get mixed in with all of that. I'm just kind of happy. I don't actually know who is reading this, other than Michelle and Rose. So there is no need to direct my rhetoric in any direction. I am not talking to people. I'm just talking, and maybe someone is listening. Maybe that's why I'm not talking so much.

It's official.

It has been confirmed:

When I speak Lithuanian, I have an American accent.

I am thankful for:

I have acquired an espresso machine. The world should consider itself warned.

Also, I got to carve the turkey this year. They gave me a knife that plugs into the wall.

Today, the Best Week Ever begins.

My closet is too small, part II

So, I finally got un-lazy enough to take some more pictures. Whee, drills, whee!

The first time I put this shelf up, it was beautiful. I put all my clothes up, and just... admired it. Then I ran downstairs to grab one more pair of jeans (I am dead serious...this is not made up at all.), hung them up, and sat down to do some homework. Three minutes later, it collapsed. I found parts of the screws, still in the wall. The force of the fall actually broke them. So I went and got some longer screws...and put it back up, two inches higher. I found the other parts of the screws when I was hanging everything back up.

My desk, unmoved.

My bookshelf, with a pretty picture of butterflies, given to me by a pretty smart 6-year-old. I've had my name misspelled a lot of different ways, but if you think about it, "A6le" makes a lot of sense.

My closet is too small.

So I turned my office into a closet.

Here are some pictures of how my office looked before I got out my drill.

Notice that the bookshelf is full. So, no matter how much I obsess about my clothing, you can see which bit of unpacking was more important to me.

Klutz

I fell down the stairs (again) last night. I'm walking, with no limp, just some pain, today. I was just thinking that it's a really good thing that I'm pretty sturdy, and that I heal pretty fast when I do get hurt.

Then I realized that this won't last forever, and I'll probably break my hip before I hit 40.

Just for you...

Dear Rose and Rebecca,

http://www.inkworks.com/offers.html

Love,
Me

Now that I have free time, I'm thinking about doing the November novel writing thing...any words of wisdom/horror/Jack Sparrow?

I did! I did!

So, I think I might drop out of grad school and quit the teaching program.

In lieu of thought

I could write some snide political commentary. I could describe my new apartment, my job, or how much grad school sucks. I could post pictures of the bedroom I turned into a closet. Or I could just take a few random personality tests and post them.


You're Not a Hipster!
Take What sort of Hipster are you? today!
Created with Rum and Monkey's Personality Test Generator.

You're actually not much of a Hipster. Congratulations! You may have Hipster style, but you're healthy, you eat right, you have a decent job you enjoy, your finances are stable, you plan on buying a house (if you don't already own one) and settling down before you're 35, you have friends you like, your friends like you, and you can honestly say you're pretty damn happy. Perhaps you should adopt a Hipster and draw them into your perfect lair . . .

What kind of pirate am I? You decide!
You can also view a breakdown of results or put one of these on your own page!
Brought to you by Rum and Monkey

Which Survivor of the Impending Nuclear Apocalypse Are You?
A Rum and Monkey joint.


Are You Damned?
Brought to you by Rum and Monkey

I am a bad, bad person.

Friday night, I checked out the medal count for the Olympics. (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/olympics/2008/medals/tracker/) As I was looking through the entire list, instead of just the top 3, I noticed that Kenya wasn't anywhere on it.

I said, to myself, "Huh. Must not have been any running events yet."

Out of curiosity, I checked the schedule. The pre-lims had started Thursday night.

Mathematical Nonsense

I have realized that I think about math maybe more than the average person. This realization came this morning, as I was pedaling up a hill, and thought, Whew! There's the inflection point!

By way of backstory, my new job, which I adore, is in BOULDER CITY. A quiet, happy little town, that happens to be 39.9 miles from where I currently live. Add to this: the night before I was offered this job, I blew out the head gasket in my car. I took the job anyway, because I am a chemist, I am, and being an employed chemist is even better.

I tried driving my grandfather's truck. But there are three problems. One, I hate driving his truck. Two, the truck sucks gas faster than I suck whiskey. Three, it likes to overheat if I drive above 45 miles per hour for very long.

I could live with not enjoying the drive. But when there is a very convenient state highway that runs from my house to my place of employment, it is rather frustrating to drive through surface street traffic so the engine doesn't catch on fire and kill you. While the truck sucks more gas because stop and go traffic is a bitch like that.

It's number two, really, that kills me. On a good day, the truck eats about 6 gallons of gas for the commute. And I am dirt cheap. The solution: take the bus. The hitch: the closest bus stop to my house is 3.6 miles away. At 3:00am, that's a little long. So I ride my bike instead, because it's mostly downhill, and the only hill is going over the convenient state highway. Where I sighed in relief for the inflection point today.

This will all be obsolete angst soon, though. I found an adorable apartment yesterday, and I move in Saturday! No more estimating inflection points, but I swear I could feel it.

In honor of my New Job

I was subjected to Training Videos today. Since I know you all wish you could have been right there with me, I found a way for me to be with you in spirit the next you begin a new job with assorted Training Videos of your own. Simply print this handy game piece on card stock, grab your favorite bingo marker and hat, and if you're still employed when the lights come back on, you win!

Check!

I finished migrating my more recent journal's posts. One more to go, plus the stuff I posted on Myspace.

...That might be a while in coming. My grown-up job starts Monday, and I am taking the Praxis II on Saturday. And I am attending a Less Than Jake Concert Thursday night.

About my grown-up job: It's nice to finally have a job that requires my degree. But it's in Boulder City. Which means I get to waken nice and early to drive out there every day. Whee!

But I'm a professional chemist now!!

One more thing...I was trying to come up with links for the sidebar, but all I could think of was Rum and Monkey. Any ideas?

Holy Updates, Batman!

In the next few weeks, when I am not writing/working/knitting I will be migrating my more interest posts from my various and sundry journals to here. So...they're coming!

Introduction

My new blog, because I am slowly falling out of love with Livejournal. I'll be figuring this out at some point.

BVM: What Dreams May Come

Book Vs. Movie: What Dreams May Come

The somewhat anticipated review has arrived. Sorry it has been much delayed, but in all the running around to get things settled for grad school, and then going to work, ya'll end up coming in second place. Sorry, but this doesn't involve a paycheck. Or a worthless piece of paper.

Back to the business at hand: WDMC.

I originally saw this in high school, because Cuba Gooding Jr. is one of my favorite actors. And the previews were enticing. I didn't know it was a book until recently.

Rundown on the book: Authored by Richard Matheson (of I am Legend notoriety...I actually found out he wrote WDMC when I was looking for a copy of IAL). I found it, with Somewhere in Time, published in a single volume. Matheson's forward included something to the effect that these two novels were his best and favorite works. Also included was that WDMC is not a work of fiction. More about that later.

Rundown on the movie: Robin Williams, Cuba Gooding Jr., Annabella Sciorra. I fell in love with this movie, partially because of my trip to Shakespeare Camp (don't laugh, I learned a lot). One of the lectures was from a costumer, and she talked a lot about the use of color in costuming to denote relationships and thus further the almighty plot. The movie does this a lot, but not just with costumes...

Matheson's book contained a 5 page source list. As any first grade teacher will tell you, the best way to educate is to entertain. He did copious research, and "solved" the afterlife mystery. Then he came up with a few characters, and told their story in this world as a means of exploring the world.

Side note: I used to be one of those bibliophiles that would read a book thoroughly, and then complain bitterly about any single change that a director made (or inclusion, or exclusion). I grew out of that nonsense. Especially when I see a movie that is amazing and then read the book that isn't as good. Shawshank Redemption might have turned the trick.

Stirke 1: The protagonist is a writer. It's one of my pet peeves. A writer's life is only interesting because they make them interesting (Or because they have severe mental illness). In the movie, he's a doctor instead. He's a well-known pediatrician, possibly specializing in neurology. I'm not sure, because he dies before you find out much detail. His children died 4 years previous causing his wife (Annie) to attempt suicide, he pulls her through it, and then gets offed while doing her a favor on an important day for them.

None of this happened in the book. He just died. Annie had some unspecified trauma and resulting mental illness, but there were more children in the book, and none of them died.

Strike 2: Annie's mental illness just isn't believable in the book. It's tweaked and twisted in the movie and Annabella Sciorra plays it very well. Plus, a spiral is established: her children die, Chris pulls her back; Chris dies, there isn't anyone to keep her from going over the brink.

Also, in the book, there is a lot of mention of soulmates, and loving each other, but it isn't really demonstrated.

Strike 3: Annie's character is really weak. I wasn't going to make it a strike until I realized that it really did bother me. She's boring in the book. You wonder why in the hell the guy's in love with her. It's very clear in the movie. She has a strong personality, fights with her husband, and they obviously adore each other.

It might not be an objective opinion, but I really prefer the movie. Here's why:

Reading the book, it's clear that the story is secondary to Matheson. His real concern is mapping out the world his research showed him. At some point, he became terribly interested in the afterlife. He fanatically researched it, and developed a theory. The story was just a way to publish his work.

This is what the director/producer/screenwriter did: They kept his world... and completely rewrote his characters and the storyline. The characters are much more likeable. The story is more coherent. There is some backstory in relevant places.

Visually, it's stunning. The effects are amazing. And the use of color! There is red whenever life/love are important elements, and blue whenever grief/death/loss are important. You might think I'm over reading it, but watch. If you are open to symbolism, the movie is a feast. Even if you aren't, it's amazingly delightful.

The score is also well-done. You don't particularly notice it, because it adds to the movie so skillfully, evoking the appropriate emotions.

Since this is already too long, the last thing I'll add is that one of the DVD extras is the original ending from the book. It's a rough cut, but an appropriate choice, because the end used was far more moving.