New Life List Entry: Attend Music Festival (minimum 100 bands)

Past posts: Honestly, you didn't miss much in terms of posts. I kind of drifted off into my own realm which you are welcome to re-incarnate, but no worries, I'm sure I'll bring them all back up in due time anyways.

Prison: The problem with attempting to make prison less appealing than being homeless is that, regardless of what we do - free food and shelter are better than not, and you can't make someone work and we have to provide those two key things. Prison will always be a better option than being homeless. However, I think you're absolutely right, a focused work program that comes with rewards and benefits will definitely be the first step towards better rehabilitation, not to mention any production by the prisoners will come at little to no cost to the producer which makes it a prime acquisition for any company...since this whole topic started with privatization anyways. I think this problem goes much deeper than just that though, as a solution - I mean, to combat the overcrowding and such, complete prison reform is really necessary, but honestly - how high is that on your priority list? With the war, economy and hot topic issues like gay marriage and abortion headlining campaign lists, where does prison even rank? It's so low on the radar right now, reform would be damn near impossible.

Format: As for blog format, I think I have come up with a solution - topic headlines. Quite simply, when discussing a topic, just bold a given title so that when we get more people and perhaps they don't want to talk about prison but they want to talk about Juno (later), they can scroll down until they see a bold "Juno" and just read that topic. This will make it more user friendly and easier to join in for new members. For new topics, I recommend we use a New Topic - Chivalry is dead, and then from there on the topic will just be known as Chivalry. Make sense? Obviously, I think these formats will kind of evolve themselves into the most efficient for whomever is posting at the time, but this is a start. A kind of guideline, which I think are necessary for any good group to function well.

His Dark Materials: I'm about half way through, maybe a little more, of the Subtle Knife - I swear, these books are blowing my mind. For the first time, I have no idea where this book is going - I'm clueless. Each turn is a better and better one, this discussion will likely continue when I'm done. In regards to the movie, I'm also torn. On one hand, The Golden Compass is an excellent story, but the promise of continuing the series in movie form seems almost impossible. One, supposedly they removed any religious material, and while that may be all well and good for TGC, it won't work for any of the other novels and that's a fact. Next, I don't think it did very well financially, although honestly I don't know, so the sequels are unlikely. Finally, did you know the Catholic church boycotted the film? Really - not because of the religious views of the movie itself, but because it will encourage kids to read the books. It's kind of sad that most religions are scared to even give their members a different point of view, but that belongs in a religion topic.

Juno: Juno indeed was a very sweet, endearing movie. In my own mind, it completes the pregnancy three: Saved!, Knocked Up, and finally, Juno. I'm a big Michael Cera fan, ever since Arrested Development, honestly, so that was quite pleasant seeing him. Have you seen Superbad?

Thanks: actually, it's meeting time for me, this will be posted later along with Astrology.

Ta.