Here’s one for all of my grammar nerd friends: Reasoning with Vampires, a site which tears apart the Twilight series. An excerpt:

I was too terrified to close my eyes, though the cool forest air whipped around my face and burned them.

SYNTACTICAL AMBIGUITY
How many faces does Bella have?

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Bella asked about Edward’s age; Edward dithered about telling her.

“I wonder if it will upset you,” he reflected to himself.

What just happened?
(a) Yes, Bella, he is talking to you. You can tell because he addressed you.
(b) Edward is addressing himself in second person, wondering if he’ll upset himself. He might be a little schizo. He does hear voices, after all.
(c) DAMNIT, STEPHENIE.

I’m probably geeking out a little too much over this, but I’ve read about six pages so far and I can’t stop reading it.

I just re-started Machiavelli’s The Prince. Everything I’d heard about it led me to believe it would be terrible, but I was actually pleasantly surprised when I picked it up and started reading it. A little ruthless at times, yes, but it has some pretty solid advice in there too. Here are some quotes I found interesting:

Men nearly always follow the tracks made by others and proceed in their affairs by imitation, even though they cannot entirely keep to the tracks of others or emulate the prowess of their models. So a prudent man must always follow in the footsteps of great men and imitate those who have been outstanding. If his own prowess fails to compare to theirs, at least it has an air of greatness about it. He must behave like the archers who, if they are skillful, when the target seems too distant, know the capabilities of their bow and aim a good deal higher than their objective, not in order to shoot so high but so that by aiming high they can reach the target.

I say, therefore, that in completely new states, where the prince himself is a newcomer, the difficulty he encounters in maintaining his rule is more or less serious insofar as he is more or less able. And since the very fact that from being a private citizen he has become a prince presupposes either ability or good fortune, it would seem that one or the other of these should to some extent lessen many of the difficulties encountered. None the less, the less a man has relied on fortune the stronger he has made his position.

As the doctors say of a wasting disease, to start with it is easy to cure but difficult to diagnose; after a time, unless it has been diagnosed and treated at the outset, it becomes easy to diagnose but difficult to cure. So it is with politics. Political disorders can be quickly healed if they are seen well in advance (and only a prudent ruler has such foresight); when, for lack of a diagnosis, they are allowed to grow in such a way that everyone can recognize them, remedies are too late.

I’m not far into the book yet, but I’m looking forward to continuing with it. I can’t say I agree with everything in it, but it does have some rather insightful nuggets that will prove useful if I ever become a dictator.

I picked up a book, An Introduction to Existentialism at the used book store down the street (best $3.98 I ever spent). I’m really impressed with it so far. I read a few chapters in the airport and on the plane ride back, and kept thinking, “Man, I need to blog about this.” By the time we landed, there were too many of those thoughts to blog about, so I had to settle on just one.

Long-time readers and friends probably know about my disdain for Idealist philosophy. That same conviction is actually the binding force of Existentialism—rather than a comprehensive system, it is a reaction against another system of irresponsible optimism.

Idealism gave birth to the concept of Utopianism. Those who knew me in college know how much I was into books like 1984, Brave New World, and Fahrenheit 451—books that were literary reactions against Utopianism. That was actually a precursor to my Existential tendencies. I just didn’t see utopia as the answer to man’s problems. I didn’t see it as a very realistic or even desirable goal.

This quote, taken from Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground, sums up pretty neatly why I fall into this camp:

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So I’ve been doing some thinking lately about Harry Potter houses (Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, Slytherin) and Keirsey archetypes (Artisan, Guardian, Rational, Idealist). I originally said that they lined up like this:

Gryffindor – Guardians (SJs)
Hufflepuff – Idealists (NFs)
Ravenclaw – Artisans (SPs)
Slytherin – Rationals (NTs)

Something abut the Ravenclaws and Slytherins has bugged me. Artisans are the opportunists of the bunch, which lines up more closely with what Slytherin seems to be all about. Also, Rationals are all about learning. But, as Mandy pointed out, some of the Artisans are far too positive to be Slytherins. So I think it’s a little more complicated than archetypal sorting can say.

So I came up with this list of examples from the Harry Potter universe. Maybe we can trace these characters back to their houses and get a better idea from there.

Artisans
ESTP – Fred and George Weasley
ESFP – Dean Thomas
ISTP – Victor Krum
ISFP – Horace Slughorn

Guardians
ESTJ – Ron Weasley (a little unsure on this one… Minerva McGonagal would be a good second choice)
ESFJ – Ginny Weasley
ISTJ – Hermione Granger
ISFJ – Neville Longbottom (although he’s so unsure of himself, we don’t see it until the end)

Rationals
ENTJ – Draco Malfoy
ENTP – Albus Dumbledore
INTJ – Severus Snape
INTP – Luna Lovegood

Idealists
ENFJ – Cedric Diggory
ENFP – Nymphadora Tonks
INFJ – Fleur Delacour
INFP – Remus Lupin

Where does Harry fall, you might ask? In some ways, he’s very much an ISTJ—duty-bound and constantly taking on unwanted responsibilities that he’s afraid will slip through the cracks. But in other ways, he has the introspection and tortured persona of an INFJ. I think he leans more toward the former than the latter, but he’s an interesting mix.

As for Lord Voldemort, he’s very much an INTJ.

So, by my chart, the introverted Artisans and the judging Rationals are Slytherins. The extraverted Artisans are yet more Gryffindors, and the perceiving Rationals are Ravenclaws. Of course, there are exceptions to any rule, but those are my predictions.

This would make Gryffindor the overwhelmingly largest house, meaning there’s either a flaw in my logic, or a flaw in Rowling’s. (Or maybe she wanted it that way. Who knows?)

So I was searching YouTube for some English major rap songs (don’t ask) and found, much to my chagrin, that not only have people made quite a few English major rap videos, but numerous people have already beaten me to my long-held dream of writing and recording a rap song about Geoffrey Chaucer (in Middle English).

One, though, really puts me in my place. His name is Baba Brinkman, and, although he raps in modern English, this is some of the most brilliant English major rapping I have ever seen. This was performed live at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2005. (The second and third are the best, in my opinion.)

So, most of you have probably figured this out by now, but I’m kind of a freak about personality profiling. My friend Mandy and I recently co-taught a class on personality at work, so I’ve been putting a lot of research into it there. I stumbled across an article that gave comparisons across numerous profiling methods. They had Myers-Briggs types, the four humors, the four elements, some sort of Asian types, and a few others. Then, toward the bottom of the article, they had Hogwarts houses. Here’s what they say:

Hogwarts House	Humor	Myers-Briggs Type
Gryffindor	Sanguine	SJ types
Ravenclaw	Melancholic	SP types
Slytherin	Choleric	NT types
Hufflepuff	Phlegmatic	NF types

I don’t know if I totally agree with this, because according to this, I’m evenly split between Slytherin and Hufflepuff. HUFFLEPUFF! Hufflepuffs can’t even go outside for fear of getting their asses kicked by the Gryffindors and Slytherins. I was sure I was a Ravenclaw… But now, not so sure.

Before you get too mad, take a deep breath and realize that this is a joke. (Except for Melville. He’s right where he needs to be.)

Funny as hell if you’ve read or seen Waiting for Godot…

So I finally broke down and started reading How to Win Friends and Influence People. Parts of it are actually good; others are definitely not. (I just finished up a chapter on the importance of smiling.) The more I read this, the more I realize: I don’t want to win friends and influence people—I just want to get shit done. I realize this means that I will never be paid as well as people who smile all the time. But I made this poster in an hour and a half. Beat that, Smiley.

Waiting for Godot, by Samuel Beckett, is widely considered to be the most important play of the 20th Century. If you’ve never read it, the full text is available here.

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