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[kolyavolkov]

and so it's a new year. I've never been a huge fan of New Year's. It just seemed like such an arbitrary date to mark the beginning of a new solar year. It doesn't coincide with the beginning of a season or anything like that. And I don't understand the particular significance of a year gone by. time just keeps moving...it's all one piece...not a

Comments

[chrmanma0]

If you haven't seen it yet, King did a series of comics about Roland's prehistory. I enjoyed it a great deal. It was very gritty and had a lot of the grittiness I remember enjoying from the first two of the Dark Tower books. I only ever read the first three but always meant to read the others. Maybe I will take a pass if you think the ending stunk so much.

[kolyavolkov]

you can always borrow the books from me so at least you don't have to pay for them. The story is really great...all the way up towards the end. the last half of the last book feels a bit tacked together...like he's trying to get it all out (his near death when he got hit by that van a few years back seems to have PUSHED him to finish the series)...and the ending is....it's just horrible. I almost want you to read it just so I'll have someone to share my fist shaking with.

[chrmanma0]

Well if the rest of it is good, I could do worse than spend many hours reading a fun story that just has a bad ending. I read books for school that weren't fun to read and ended badly also, so that is an improvement. I heard from knockabout and he says the trip is a go for the last couple of weeks of February. With that time line, I will have both the stout and the Abby Style Ale ready to go.

[la_directora]

My high school had an extensive relationship with the Salvation Army in Dallas, so we did lots of work for their various projects. I'm with you on the mixed feelings about their evangelical policies, which is why I don't donate to them anymore. But, man, do they do some good projects, especially at Christmas time. I volunteered for the Toy Shop one Christmas, and it was just as amazing as you described. I walked one woman through who spoke no English whatsoever (thank heavens I knew the Spanish words for lots of the toys). She was picking up toys for two children, one of whom was a girl. I showed her a really pretty doll at one point, and she shook her head and explained that the toys that nice must certainly be for someone else. She didn't think she was allowed to take it. When I explained to her that she could take ANY toy she wanted, and that if she thought her daughter would like this one, then she should take this one, she look at me in amazement. And started to cry. And, yup, that right there was exactly why I'm glad I

[kolyavolkov]

well over 90% of the people who showed up only spoke Spanish. So I had to get by on what little I had. I could say "toy" "girl" "boy" "table" "take" and the numbers and that got me thru. We had a lot of things donated from companies; they would just donate cases and cases of a particular thing...so we'd just put it in thier bag for them as we went by. I had a couple moms (it was almost all moms...very rarely would the fathers come in. partly because they were out working...and I think partly from pride) that thought I was "stealing" extra toys for them and told me to put it back so I wouldn't get in trouble...and when I told them "pick anything from these (eight or so) tables" they would just stare at me like I said "would you like a new car to go with these?"

[la_directora]

One of the things I am the most grateful to my mother for is having me do things like this growing up. I did the Toy Store thing, and my mom would take us to feed people on Thanksgiving and Christmas before we had our own holiday meal. It certainly made it impossible for us to feel entitled. Given some of the greedy brats I see posing as children these days, I sure wish more parents would expose their children to this sort of thing. Seeing a woman who thinks she doesn't have the right to have a nice toy for her child sure makes it harder to feel entitled to everything.