Of course, I read them as a teenager, so maybe that accounts for my opinion of His Dark Materials, since I'm reading them as an adult. Masterpiece Theatre already adapted the first Sally Lockheart story ("The Ruby in the Smoke") earlier this year, I think they have plans to do the rest as well. The only misfire was Billie Piper as Sally, which I thought a very odd choice.

I like the His Dark Materials books, but I don't love them. Pullman's prose is kind of disjointed. He has some passages that flow beautifully, and then in others it seems clear he just needs a way to get from Plot Point A to Plot Point B and is kind of filling in the blanks. In any case, I'm about 1/3 of the way through The Amber Spyglass now, and as with all trilogies (except for Star Wars), the middle volume is the worst/most boring/bogged down in minutiae. I really do want to see the film, because the imagery is gorgeous in that bizarro steampunk aesthetic that I think I'm falling in love with. But I'm not expecting much from the story, since its been gutted of all the anti-established-religion, pro-freethinking propaganda, which is kind of the whole point of the series.

I also want to address the Narnia criticism: well DUH it's full of Christian imagery, that's the point! I was totally blown away when I first read reviews of it complaining about all the Christian allegory. That stuff is completely transparent in at least three of the Narnia books, I mean Lewis didn't even try to hide it. Crucifixion? Check. Resurrection? Check. "Lamb of God"? Check. The Apocalypse? Check. I'm not a Christian myself (atheist!) but I can't begin to tell you how much I love those books. I loved the movie as well, and I thought for the money they did a damn good job with the imagery. My only complaint was that it was a little to "bright and shiny" but then again Narnia itself was very bright and shiny. I think it captured the feeling of the books very well. It was produced by a mid-sized company (Walden?) so they didn't have the dosh to throw at it they way, say Jackson got with the LOTR films. But props to them all the same: that shot of the Phoenix flying low over the battlefield then bursting into flames just above the enemy as he's shot with a flaming arrow (on purpose) was aces. The whole audience went "Woah!" when we saw that.

I also think its really a shame that the ARC dude was let go. Was the woman a direct report, or just someone somewhere in the chain of reporting? With direct reports things get a little iffy, but given that he was the chairman, wouldn't *everyone* be a "subordinate"? Cut the guy a little slack for finding happiness!

Some of the happiest couples I know met through work. I think not dating in the office is maybe a good guideline, but a foolish rule since we spend most of our waking lives at work and that's pretty much how we all meet new people these days. If you think you have a shot at real happiness and companionship, don't reject it out of hand for something as transient as a job.

I will say a couple of things:

1) Don't pull that trigger until you're damn sure you both want the same thing (ie not a situation where one person wants an NSA hookup while the other wants a wife and kids). Becoming good friends first is a good way to avoid that.

2) Once things get cooking, keep a really tight lid on it until you're past the new-relationship trial period. My office is particularly nasty and has several of what one coworker referred to as "gossip hubs", meaning that once a tiny piece of information (true or not) hits one of those hubs, the story explodes exponentially and the entire company hears about it within three days.

Seriously. Don't tell a soul. Two people I used to work with every single day were in the middle of purchasing a house together before anyone figured out that they were even dating. The punchline there was that they sat *next to each other* all day, every day. If you ever want to lose a lot of money at cards, play with them. I have never seen better poker faces in my life.

3) No drunken hookups at company parties. Just don't. If you know you can't hold your liquor, don't drink around your coworkers. Its' awful for everyone. It's awful for the participants (one of whom will invariably wind up with stronger feelings than the other) and its awful for everyone else in the department who has to sit in the same cube farm space trying not to pay attention to the pouting/sulking/openly-propositioning/ignoring/hiding/dodging psychodrama going on around them.