Amor Est Vitae Essentia

First week of the new year has been really big. Surprisingly big. Art
and music have been present in every day so far. One surprise, though.
Out of all the brilliant and beautiful quotes I have read this past
month or so, some of the most beautiful words I have seen were from
Bill Cosby. Though, in truth, this should not have been much of a
surprise, considering his credentials as a human being and a humorist.

"Decide that you want it more than you are afraid of it." - Bill Cosby

It's one of those quotes that just rings true with your soul about life itself.

I think it should be noted that I like the most recent film
interpretation of I Am Legend. I like it a lot. This is significant
because I have finally read the original story, and so now I know
what's different. Part of what makes a story good, regardless of the
quality of the plot is in the telling, and the new movie is pretty
flawlessly told. It's a brilliant pacing set with a storyline that is
filled with empathetic catalysts and human loneliness. It captures a
lot of the feel of the earlier part of the novel, but in making the
diseased humanity too feral and monstrous, they lost the ability to
use the twist that was used at the end of the novel. I had just
written a paragraph or two about the nature of the novel's twist, till
I realized, someone might read it, and it's worth reading, especially
for the twist ending. Suffice it to say that I previously entirely
hated the alternate ending to the new movie, but now, while I still
hate it, I understand the purpose and what it was trying to do. They
made the monsters too monstrous, with too few glimpses of humanity,
too violent, and the attack on his home too horrendous for their
numbers for it to work, so it is very very bad, but I understand it
and now I understand why they didn't use it.

Lately I have been dreaming of electric sheep. I wonder what that means?

Today we are re-brewing our Campfire Blond, and we plan on doing it
right this time with much fewer smoked malts for a more balanced
flavor.

"The chairs, the carpet, the tables -- all had rotted away; they
sagged in mutual ruin, victims of the despotic forces of time. And of
abandonment."

Some quotes make you feel good. Others ought to make you feel the
entropic forces of the universe encroaching around you.

"There's no such thing as quitting. Just sometimes there's a longer
pause between relapses, right?" - Laurie

Others feel sort of like private coded messages.

Signing out, "As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human
existence is to kindle a light of meaning in the darkness of mere
being." -- C.G. Jung