Color Blindness: I followed a link from Synthetic Morpheme to a site with a bunch of tests for color blindness. These are really interesting. It's hard, if not impossible, to visualize the perceptual experiences of someone who physically doesn't percieve what you do. I was especially interested by a test in which people without color blindness see nothing, and people with total color blindness see nothing. But people with red-green color blindness see the number '5'. I played with the color levels in Gimp, and the results below are the original, a grayscale version, and a version with the reds and greens merged together: [raises an eyebrow] Fascinating.

I'm listening to this stand-up comedy show, and one of the comedians is criticizing video phones. Although meant as a joke, his prediction for widespread video use is probably quite accurate: entirely new levels of obscene phone calls. Email spam has taught us all that with the ability to send pictures comes massive exposure to unsolicited porn.

While we're on the subject of fantasy novels, Fark led me to this site about the lives of Saints. Most interesting to me was Saint Vitus, the patron saint of not oversleeping. Saint Vitus is also the man for whom Saint Vitus' Dance was named, which was an early name for Huntington's Chorea. Like most of Catholic Church "history," it reads like a sample from a Dungeons and Dragons game:

Legend says Vitus was the son of a pagan Sicilian senator named Hylas. Converted to Christianity at age twelve by his tutor Saint Modestus and his nurse Saint Crescentia. His father showed his objection by having the three arrested and scourged. Freed from prison by angels, they fled to Lucania, then Rome. There he freed Emperor Diocletian's son of an evil spirit. When Vitus would not sacrifice to the pagan gods in celebration, his cure was attributed to sorcery, and he and his household were arrested again. Tortured, and condemned to death, they were thrown to the lions; the lions would not touch them, so they were thrown into boiling oil At the moment of their deaths, a immense storm destroyed several pagan temples in the region, hence the protection against stormy weather. One of the Fourteen Holy Helpers. For obscure reasons, some 16th century Germans believed they could obtain a year's good health by dancing before the statue of Saint Vitus on his feast day. This dancing developed almost into a mania, and was confused with chorea, the nervous condition later known as Saint Vitus' Dance, the saint being invoked against it. His connection with such "dancing" led to his patronage of dancers, and later to entertainers in general and in particular. A rooster was thrown into the oil with him, sacrificed as part of the ritual against sorcery. A rooster became a symbol for Vitus, and its connection with early rising led to Vitus's patronage and protection against oversleeping.

...And after earning 10 strangth points, you may upgrade Saint Vitus' character profile by adding hand-to-hand combat skill or small weapons proficiency. Speed +5, Defense +10, Attack +5.

James: Damn! That was a great synopsis of The Two Towers which expresses the bewilderment that I've heard from many a movie-goer who hasn't read the books. The problem is that they have attempted to take several thousand pages of Tolkein's works and fit them into a few movies. I think they decided to cater to those who have read the books and more or less know the background of the story. Tolkein was a scholar of archaic European languages and literature, and I'm told he wanted to translate the mythic style of ancient tales into a modern form. Many of the languages, names, and places in the books are loosely derived from actual places, names, languages, and ancient legends and myths. Tolkein created a complicated world, most of which is explained in The Silmarillion, which is a very large book detailing the pre-history of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. If you aren't already familiar with this world, you're screwed as far as seeing the movies goes. You might as well come in from outer space and, with virtually no knowledge of human beings, sit down to a few hours of CSPAN. I think there is a sort of pyramid of Lord of the Rings movie-watchers. Many will probably be like you, and have very little knowledge of the characters, places, plots, or ideas from the books. Then there's me: I read all the books in junior high school, and I spent a fair amount of time reading stuff written by Tolkein enthusiasts, including a guide to Middle Earth beasts with illustrations. I also saw the cartoon movies repeatedly as a child, so I know what's going on and I had a great time seeing it on the big screen. I remember being completely excited and terrified when I read the part about the Mines of Moria and the Balrog. Reliving that in a visual format is like adding new levels to an existing experience. At the top of the pyramid are the folks who are so intimately familiar with Tolkein's works that they can actually pick apart the movie by noticing, say, occasions when Eastern Elves speak in Western dialects. I think people in my category make up the bulk of the pyramid's volume, and probably get the most enjoyment out of seeing the films. By the way, to answer some of your questions: the cock-rocker was introduced as a preternaturally expert tracker in Fellowship of the Ring. In fact, that is his primary occupation, other than being heir to the thrown of something. Gandalf emerges in the second film as "Gandalf the White," who is a somewhat different character than the previous "Gandalf the Gray" by virtue of having died and come back from the dead. Gandalf the White is much more powerful, mystical, and serious, and is able to summon Shadowfax, who is sort of the Platonic form of a fast horse. Saurumon probably is a loose reference to Solomon, but don't ask me to try and analyze the meaning of this allusion. The two towers were Mordor (Sauron's place) and Isengard (Saurumon's place). The book's title is due to the alliance between Mordor and Isengard, the development of which is the central event for this part of the saga. In all honesty, the films span thousands of years of Tolkein history, and even in the books The Two Towers is kind of a confusing bridge between the more significant Fellowship of the Ring and Return of the King. It's kind of like reading the book of Judges in the Bible. After Moses, things kind of break down and go every which way. It mostly accomplishes character development, some historical explanations, and expresses a condition of hopelessness against a rising imperial power (Sauron and Mordor) which intends to erradicate/enslave all of humankind. After laboriously establishing this hopelessness, The Two Towers concludes with a pair of turning-point victories. These set the stage for the rising action of Return of the King, which culminates in the dramatic defeat of Sauron, the destruction of the Ring within Mount Doom, and the fiery end of Gollum, overpowered by his lust for the Ring.

I finally saw Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers last week. It must be said that my previous exposure to Tolkein consisted of reading The Hobbit, in 6th grade or something, and watching the first Peter Jackson movie, when it was out in theaters. And it must be said that, though I don't associate any particular displeasure with these experiences, I remember very little about them at all. Bilbo Baggins rings a bell, but, then again, so does Quasimodo. The Fellowship of the Ring movie brings to mind fire and gray backgrounds and fearful short people and Ian McKellan being wise. There might've been some stuff about courage and love in there, but whatever. That being said: What the hell was going on in The Two Towers? Seriously, what the fuck just happened? I'm not talking about themes or allegories or ephemeral stuff, I really just don't know what was physically occurring in the film. I was so lost. Characters would speak to each other in grave tones, using dozens of similar-sounding proper nouns, and Brooke and I would turn to each other and shrug. According to my understanding: A schizoid pig-man tries to steal a ring from two perpetually sad-faced midgets, and ends up guiding them to a big gate, which they don't go through. I forget what happens to them in the end. Meanwhile, a cock-rocker with a sword runs a marathon or two with a real live dwarf and a sexy man with arrows (who may or may not have been named after San Diego county's newest theme park, Legoland), all the while having flashbacks to Aerosmith videos. They stop once in a while to meet kings and Ian McKellan (who briefly forgets that he was in the first film) and they end up helping defend a castle in a mountain from thousands of vicious computer generated images. The images far outnumber the cock-rocker and his friends, so Legoland enlists his friends, all of whom, like him, are in the band Nelson. They don't sing "Love and Affection", but they do shoot fast arrows and one of them dies dramatically. The cause of all this seems to be a giant flaming vagina and its servant, Christopher Lee, or perhaps it's the other way around. Anyway, it sounded like these two entities' names were Solomon, which I can only assume is Biblical, and Soren, which I can only assume is Kierkegaard. Anyway, Solomon and Kierkegaard the Vaginal are Bad, cause the music was Bad and the sky was cloudy and dark when they were on screen. Then some other stuff happened and somehow we found ourselves in the car driving home. Oh yeah, the tree guys were cool. What did I do wrong? Why did all the women and men have the same haircut? Why did people run up to the top of a hill, pause to stare at something in the distance, wait for the music to swell, and then speak an often unintelligible proper noun with gravity and feeling? Why did that same thing happen ten times in the first hour of the movie? Why were so many things so convenient? Why was the cock-rocker a preternaturally expert tracker when it mattered? Why was there another way into the place the midgets were trying to enter? Why was it so easy for the main characters to just ride their horses out of the besieged castle, mowing down CGIs like a cow guard on a train? Why did Legoland and the dwarf have to banter Lethal Weapon-style during what was supposed to be the most serious and brutal scene in the film? How come it was so easy for the gay midgets to get the tree guy to go south instead, and why was it so easy to do so? Where were the challenges and trials in the film? And what was up with the slo-mo King of the Horses? Who cares? Is this a Peter Jackson film or an Enya video? AND WHERE WAS THE SECOND TOWER? WHAT DID I MISS?

So I'm sitting here doing valuable things for the benefit of mankind and stuff, and Married By America comes on in the background. One of the contestants actually says, "I believe its God's plan for me to come here and find a husband." How amazing! I, personally, have never had the knack for distinguishing between God's plan and my own hair-brained get-rich-quick schemes.