Judging a book by its cover

Gotta hand it to Tasia. Her post inspired me to write this. http://tasiasaja.blogspot.com/2006/11/aneh.html

Who says you can't judge a book by its cover? If I'm going to a bookstore, I'm going to try to find the book I'm looking for by the title on the cover. If I'm looking a computer book, and I saw a book titled "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus", I'm not going to pick up that book and assume the content will be about mvc design in object oriented software development.

If I wear gangsta clothing and act like a gangsta, I can't complain that people treat me as if I'm in a gang. I presented myself like a gang member. It would be dumb if a cop saw me and doesn't check me out. I look like a gang member, I act like a gang member, so... I must NOT be a gang member???

If you look like a nice person, I would have to assume you're a nice person. And if you look like a not-so-nice person, then I wouldn't be wrong to avoid you. I have no other way of knowing. It would be wrong of me to stick to my assumption if other facts come to prove otherwise.

Yes, presentation counts.

So can you judge a book by its cover? Sure you can. Just don't stick to your judgement too strictly. There are hidden treasures inside books that may have ugly covers, as well as there are hidden rotten stuff inside books that may have shiny, glossy covers.

And if anyone is about to complain about equality, of course I know all books are created equal. All are valuable. But some books are more valuable to me. Obviously, I'm going to choose my family and friends over some stupid terrorists. And of course I will choose Jennifer Aniston all the time. My point is . . . wait . . . what's my point? Oh yeah...

My point is: I will always choose Jennifer Aniston. So Jen, when you're free let me know.

Lord of The Rings (the philosophical post)

Faith, hope, and love. That's what I saw in LOTR the movie. It's known that Tolkien is a catholic and he considered LOTR as a christian piece of work. You can find lots of discussion on Christian values of LOTR on the internet. I want to focus on faith, hope and love to keep it short. (cause I'm sleepy now)

Throughout the movie and the book, I saw many who spoke of faith, hope, and love. Especially in the movie, the last journey of Sam and Frodo to Mount Doom in Mordor, Sam kept faith and hope alive for Frodo. When faith and hope died out, love kept them going. Love of good, love of the Shire, love of middle-earth, love of friendships.

I saw a post that said Tolkien had a grim look at humanity. That's why eventually, he wrote that Sam and Frodo lost all faith and hope. They're kept on going just because it's a good thing to do.
You know what, when someone is doing stuff just because it's a good thing to do, that's called love. So I don't think Tolkien had a grim look at humanity. I say he considered humanity will be saved by love when faith and hope had failed.

1 Corinthians 13:13
"So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love."


On another note, I'm really hooked on Gandalf's answer when Frodo wish that bad times wouldn't have happened:

"and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us"

And to keep me from getting too cheesy... I'm closing this post with a beer. Cheers!

Lord of The Rings (off the wall post)

So I'm watching LOTR, and the known warrior such as Faramir and Eowyn, when they're wounded in battle, they were tended in a beautiful room. Now I'm thinking, so what happened with the poor regular soldiers? They got wounded, came to their wives and children, and still need to pay tax and whatever bills they have in the old days. Their wives could be working for the palace too. So now their wives are busy tending the kings and queens, the soldier is home wounded, kids running around screaming, the baby needs diaper changed.

Life's not fair.

"and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us"

Lord of The Rings (the boring complain post)

Gotta hand it to Peter Jackson. He really did a great job with the movie. This is the second time I've seen it. The first time was a little confusing to me. Although I've been a fan of medieval fantasy since I can remember, I never was interested in Lord of The Rings. I figured, it's the older version of what people had developed now. Probably boring. After watching the movie the second time, and reading the books, now I know I was wrong. The others are still trying to be as good as the original but none can compare.

Not knowing the books, some parts of the movie are confusing. Let's take Gandalf. When he became the white wizard, it wasn't really explained that white wizards are more powerful in general than grey wizard. So I didn't know why Gandalf suddenly can beat Saruman. Then King of Nazgul broke Gandalf's staff in an instant as Gandalf broke Saruman's staff. To me, that shows that the Nazgul was way more powerful than Gandalf. On top of that, Gandalf seems very afraid when his staff was broken. After that, the Nazgul fought with Eowyn. I couldn't understand how Eowyn could dodge those blows. If the Nazgul could beat Gandalf easily, how could Eowyn survived that long? The nazgul should've gotten her with one strike. That blow to the shield would've killed Eowyn if he was that powerful.
But, Gandalf drove many Nazguls when they were chasing Faramir. So the light trick only worked once?

Speaking of King of Nazgul, he looked like Sauron that fought Isildur to me. I was confused whether the king of Nazgul is Sauron put in a body or Sauron's projected image.

I'll edit this post as I can think of more stuff I want to complain about the movie. I almost missed out on LOTR because I thought the story is inconsistent. Good thing I was going to be Gandalf last halloween so I research him more and that leads me to discover more stuff.
Now I'm hooked! Anybody wants to learn Quenya and Sindarin with me?