billytea, I met an Australian guy in the teeniest airport in the world (Central Wisconsin). His charming accent reminded me of you. We had a chat while waiting for the security line to open up.

Kat, what size jeans is Noah in? He's such a cutiehead cowboy!

paperdol, I hope you feel better soon.

ita, I went to a program orientation that's based out of your university. I felt all cool knowing someone who went there. Good luck with the drugs.

I'm totally new south walesed?

Now whenever I'm short of a term to explain how drunk I am...

That Noah is so cute! And his clothes! Why don't they make grown up clothes in that onesie pattern?

Why don't they make grown up clothes in that onesie pattern?

Mention it to erinaceous...

I know I came past some atheism will kill your kids talk getting to the end of the thread. I thouight of it when I saw this:

Two months before the scheduled release of New Line Cinema's The Golden Compass, the Catholic League has launched an all-out assault on the fantasy film. The League, the largest Catholic lay organization in the U.S., has produced a 25-page pamphlet, titled "The Golden Compass: Unmasked," that it is selling on its website for $5.00 per copy, which damns the film as a pernicious effort to indoctrinate children into atheistic beliefs. Acknowledging that the film itself is unlikely to contain offensive material, Catholic League President Bill Donohue said in a statement, "If unsuspecting Christian parents take their children to see the movie, they may very well find it engaging and then buy Pullman's books for Christmas. That's the problem. We are fighting a deceitful stealth campaign on the part of the film's producers." Pullman has acknowledged his anti-religious stance but critics have said that his books present little that is likely to offend believers.

Hmm. I found the anti-religion irritating, and I'm not a believer.

I thought the Gnostic basis of Pullman's books was interesting. I was a little annoyed at the pronouncement that he was portraying "our" reality, but I'm not sure how he could have gotten around it.

Okay, so this last new power on Heroes is the coolest ever, and I need to have it right now.

I found Pullman's tone got high-handed and derisive and it just sat poorly with me.

I didn't get that, but I can see where you could.

I feel bad for Nicole Kidman. She pre-emptively defended the movie as not being anti-Catholic and now this guy is saying that that's just a ploy to trick people into reading the books. Seems unfair.

Oh, I think the guy cited is a wackjob, no doubt. Some great big atheist plot to whitewash children's brains into hateful godlessness? Or whatever. A little more faith in your faith, please!

I wonder how much the movie producers care about book sales, unless it turns right around into more tickets.

well, it does, in a roundabout way. More book sales generates more interest for sequels.

Noah is adorable.

They used to show us videos of Shalom Sesame on rainy days at summer camp. I've got some vague memories of the actual shows, but no specifics. I think they were an English-language series that the show had done -- they had some American Sesame Street characters and some characters that were from the Israeli show. I think the Oscar the Grouch type character was named Moshe?