Interesting Stuff

Tonight, Hansford, Rachel, this guy named Kyle and I were playing Scrabble (well, Hansford was playing guitar, but the 3 of us were playing Scrabble), and I actually did it – I got a 7-letter word! I built off of Kyle’s WEAR to make
SWEAR
P
O
N
G
E
D
Counting the various letter bonuses, and the 50-point bonus for using all of my letters, I scored 77 points that turn. I finished the game with 247 points. This is the first time I can remember having ever broken 200! Whee!
Ordinarily, I don’t even look for words that long, but my tiles were randomly arranged as SPONDEG, so it was easy to find this one. Once I found it, I didn’t have any place to put it (this was the 2nd turn of the game, and there were surprisingly no words that could have an S on the end). So, knowing that an extra 50 points awaited me, I passed, and got a 0 that turn. Rachel gave me a rather funny look at this point, which I probably deserved. But by the next turn, Kyle had played WEAR, and I had my chance. So, yeah. I’m pretty happy right now.

Last night, Mac, Hansford and I went to see Farenheit 9/11. In his usual style, Michael Moore discussed some things I already knew, and many I did not. It was a very intense, emotional movie, and at several points I was brought close to tears. However, this being Michael Moore, it should still be taken with a grain of salt (or as Travis said, a whole salt lick). I know that the part about the Bin Laden family still having contacts with Osama at the beginning was really edited – in early 2002 or thereabouts, I saw an episode of Larry King Live (is episode the right word? Can you have an “episode” of a talk show?) in which he interviewed Osama Bin Laden’s cousin. She said that yes, they really had kicked Osama out of the family. Nonetheless, there’s really nothing wrong with seeing estranged family members at weddings, funerals, and the like. Also, the Bin Laden family is so huge that it doesn’t surprise me at all that one or two members of it would have written to him once in a while.
I’ll have to go online sometime and read criticisms of F9/11, to learn what other things Moore has unrealistically portrayed.
One other thing I should mention about the movie – it is very emotional. So much so that I’m slightly reminded of the environmentalist movement, which uses emotion as a substitute for logic and fact. Yes, Moore puts many facts into his movie, but the emotion sort of obscures them. I wonder if the movie would be as controversial if he had scaled that back a little. But as Mac (playing devil’s advocate in the car ride home) argued, the movie is about people dying in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is a very emotional topic.
I’m rather amazed at some some of the footage in the film. There are scenes of raids in Iraq, there are scenes of President George W Bush having his makeup put on “before” he goes on camera. How does Michael Moore get these clips? If I were a large corporation/government and I owned footage like this, I would probably not share it.
All in all, it was a good movie, and I reccomend seeing it, but keep in mind that Michael Moore twists things to better illustrate his points. The arguments he makes seem to be mostly correct, just exaggerated a fair amount.

So, when Kai left, he gave me some of his leftover food, including a package of “haw flakes” (made with real haw!). Tonight, Hansford finally figured out what they are, by finding this website: http://www.cardhouse.com/a/pixbarn/p19.htm
Haw flakes are like fruit leather made from hawthorne fruit. However, it’s much dryer than fruit leather – haw flakes can chip easily, and I bet I could make one crumble. However, they’re pretty good! And unlike the website, I didn’t get any bad aftertaste or grating feeling. If nothing less, it’s an unusual thing to try.