warning: severe snottiness ahead
I first read The Lord of the Rings when I was around 10 years old (Yeah, I know that's kind of early, but I had a library stocked by older brothers with good taste.), and have read it at least once every two years since then. That's 20+ times, which either makes me fairly pathological or "beautiful and terrible as the morning and the night" (in Galadriel's words), depending on how you look at it.

So yeah, I'm a fan. I saw the first two movies (loved the first, liked the second), but haven't seen the third yet because (a) the Manila Film Festival had to happen first, and (b) I'd rather wait for the regular showing than wait in a line at a premiere for which I'd have had to pay a ridiculous amount of money to see a story which I already know practically by heart. But I'm finally seeing it tonight with my guys (all twelve of us!). Reports have been good, so I'm excited.

Now for the snotty part. I saw a post by some person calling themselves a 'Lord of the Rings fan'. This person had made a big, big image with the word "Isenguard" emblazoned on it in even bigger letters. The person later apologized for the misspelling, explaining, "I'm Canadian, we like to put the letter 'u' in everything." Listen up, buddy, if you didn't know that it's "Isengard", it's not because you're Canadian-- it's because you obviously haven't read the book! And if you haven't read the book and have only seen the movie, then you're not a fan; yer just another Legolas groupie. Okay?


one "of the best authors... in the country"-- that's me!
Hey, I didn't say it! Some very nice journalist at Business World did, in reference to SIGLO: Freedom, the fabulous grafiction anthology I got to participate in last year. (Well, I am married to one of the editors...) I couldn't find a byline for the article author, but whoever that was, I'm so loving ya!