There are few albums that hit the nail right on the head. Most albums have one or two singles that are awesome and the rest of the tracks stink. Sometimes an album will have mostly great stuff, except for the few crappy tracks you skip through each time. But then occasionally — and I mean, oh, so rarely – an album will come along that is absolutely perfect, where every track goes smoothly into the next the whole way through. There is undeniable bliss of being able to play an entire CD from start to finish. These “perfect” albums are few and far between, and my list is short. But my list is as follows:

Maroon 5′s It Won’t Be Soon Before Long (my current fave)

Maroon 5′s Songs for Jane (yeah, I guess that would make them my favorite band, if I really had a favorite band…)

Def Leppard’s Hysteria

John Mayer’s Room for Squares

and perhaps my favorite: Jars of Clay by Jars of Clay

Sound off! I’m sure some of you will think that all of these suck. For me, though, these are dang perfect.

What is your perfect CD??

I was very sad to see that Katee Sackhoff (from the new Bionic Woman, and “Starbuck” from Battlestar Galactica), my current wanna-be-like-this-star person didn’t show up. Also, I was a little sad to see that the celebrity I have been told most times that I look like: Drew Barrymore, did not show up on the radar at all. But I guess I’ll take Fergie… whatever. And at least Shaq didn’t make an appearance.

Thanks to Bad Mom and Mama Milton for posting up this cute thing first.

So today I got one of those Fw:fw:fw: READ THIS!!! emails that everyone sends to everyone in their email address books, clogging servers and inboxes on every continent. It was from my aunt (Hi, Joan), who usually does not send me this kind of stuff unless it’s something either really cute (ie- containing pictures of kittens in cute poses like lying stretched out, yawning in a hammock) or else something seemingly important. I opened it and read it, hoping that my virus scan would do it’s job well.

The email pertained to the new movie coming out this Christmas season called “The Golden Compass”, based on the first novel in a trilogy called “His Dark Materials” by Phillip Pullman. Pullman is called by some the “Anti-CS Lewis” in that he is a proud Atheist, hates CS Lewis, and writes children’s fantasy novels… which are kind of anti-Narnia in context. From what I have read up on thus far (though I want to make clear that I have NOT read the trilogy, so I do not know specifically or firsthand what is in it), the trilogy starts out pretty tame and watered down (with the first book being kind of borderline and not overtly anti-Christian). However, by the end of the trilogy it becomes brash and in-your-face,  the third book ending with the child characters killing off the “God” character in order to do whatever they want. The child characters main struggle is with a dark secret society/church called the Magisterium (supposedly representing Christianity). Another character (an ex-nun) describes Christianity as “a very powerful and convincing mistake”. Now, I want to stress again that I have not read these books. However, finding these claims to be a little unsettling (I was planning to take my son to see this movie, not knowing much about it), I decided to do a little Google search on this Phillip Pullman guy.

The following is cut and pasted directly from his personal blog (www.phillip-pullman.com) in the “about the writing” section.

His Dark Materials seems to be against organised religion. Do you believe in God?

I don’t know whether there’s a God or not. Nobody does, no matter what they say. I think it’s perfectly possible to explain how the universe came about without bringing God into it, but I don’t know everything, and there may well be a God somewhere, hiding away.

Actually, if he is keeping out of sight, it’s because he’s ashamed of his followers and all the cruelty and ignorance they’re responsible for promoting in his name. If I were him, I’d want nothing to do with them.

Were you encouraged to be creative?

No, I was ignored. When anyone took any notice it was to point out what a twit I was, and laugh at me. This was the best possible preparation for the life of a novelist. If you have grown-ups fussing over you and encouraging you and taking an interest, you begin to think you’re important, and furthermore that you need and deserve their attention. After a while you become incapable of working without someone else motivating you. You’re much better off supplying your own energy, and writing in spite of the fact that no-one’s interested, and even learning to put up with other people’s contempt and ridicule. What do they know, anyway?

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Ummmm… this guy is a children’s writer?!? And an award-winning one, no less. Even if he is not attempting to write with overtly anti-Christian themes, it would seem to me an impossible thing for a person with such bleak, there-is-no-god-and-if-there-was-he’d-hate-you-anyway views to be able to write something positive and brilliant for children.

Has anyone read these books personally? I would love to hear more about it. But in the meantime, it’s coming off of our “Holiday Must See” movie list.