Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers: Father, I have Sinned:

1. The criminal must be mentioned in the early part of the story, but must not be anyone whose thoughts the reader has been allowed to follow.(AC: Roger Ackroyd is most notable, but there are others...Witness for the Prosecution, etc)  (DS: I don't think we're ever in anyone's head.)

 2. All supernatural or preternatural agencies are ruled out as a matter of course. (AC: Hound of Death, kind of; Fourth Man, etc...kind of, at least.) (DS: Clouds of Witness.  See title, Murder Must Advertise, kind of.)

3. Not more than one secret room or passage is allowable.(why is even one secret passage allowable??) (AC: not guilty) (DC: not guilty)

4. No hitherto undiscovered poisons may be used, nor any appliance which will need a long scientific explanation at the end. (AC: AAH Silent Witness!! Who poisons people with phosphorus, anyway?) (DS: the entire POINT of Unnatural Death is Appliance With Long Scientific Explanation; also how Strong Poison works.)

5. No Chinaman must figure in the story. (AC: Big Four! and More!) (DS: not guilty)

6. No accident must ever help the detective, nor must he ever have an unaccountable intuition which proves to be right.(AC: Miss Marple all the way! (although I don't know if Character Analysis counts), By the Pricking of My Thumbs) (DS: Unnatural Death.)

7. The detective himself must not commit the crime. (AC: Roger Ackroyd, Curtain, ...does Miss Marple ever do a murder? I'd love that.) (DS: not guilty.  She committed the far greater sin of falling in love with LPW.)

8. The detective is bound to declare any clues upon which he may happen to light. (AC, DS: Um, all of them.  That's what stupid sidekicks are for, no?)

9. The stupid friend of the detective, the Watson, must not conceal from the reader any thoughts which pass through his mind; his intelligence must be slightly, but very slightly, below that of the average reader.(AC: If my intelligence is only slightly above that of Hastings, I seek medical treatment.) (DS: I wouldn't say Parker is stupid, but I'm not sure he has thoughts either)

10. Twin brothers, and doubles generally, must not appear unless we have been duly prepared for them. (AC: Elephants Can Remember, A Murder is Announced, although we were probably "duly prepared".  Don't know if it counts, since it's a spoof, but Achille Poirot in Big Four.  Of course, he's not exactly alive.) (DS: ummm...I don't think she's guilty?)

MY ADDITION: because no one I know reads the books I do, so since it feels stupid to say it to an empty room, I might as well write it to a nonexistent audience, in true livejournalian fashion.

THE UNFORGIVABLE SIN: FALLING IN LOVE WITH YOUR OWN DETECTIVE.  SEE DOROTHY L. SAYERS, P. D. JAMES, et.al, but NEVER AGATHA CHRISTIE!--on the contrary, AC claimed to detest her creation, Hercule Poirot.  I in fact think that she did not detest him, but had the irritated fondness for him that anyone who would have known him in "real life" would have shared.  He is, after all, a rather irritating individual--yet I think her actual fondness for him shines through her novels, and in the fact that she murders him herself--I believe, not because she dislikes him and wants to rid herself of him--the novel was to be published posthumously--but because she could not bear to see what was already happening to Doyles' Holmes--the creation of other books starring another man's detective.  I recall that she speaks about this herself in her autobiography.  That in itself shows an unwilling fondness for her creation, like the unwilling owner of an obnoxious Pekenese who would miss the barking if the dog were absent.  So AC 's characterization of Poirot has a tone of irritated fondness that is both touching and rings true.

DS, on the other hand, clearly fell in love with LPW.  In every book, he becomes more and more of a superman; he even gets taller and better-looking as the books progress. (under 5'9'' in the first book, he is a little under 6' by the last) He goes from an underdeveloped fair-haired Bertie Wooster to a sleek, muscled, intelligent, superhero by the end, who can do everything, from playing the piano like a maestro to swimming to rowing.  Needless to say, he is lovable in the beginning, insufferable by the end.  Even worse, she writes herself into her books--not, in the AC style, as a wittering, absent-minded, endearing Ariadne Ollivers who eats about 20 apples a day and sheds hairpins wherever she goes, but as the persecuted, brilliant, and "oddly captivating" herione (at least, so were are told, by our clearly unbiased narrator) who MARRIES her detective.  Both become increasingly, obnoxiously, and sickeningly perfect as time goes on. ugh.  They become embarrassing, like reading the effusions of a 13-year-old writing fantasy fiction, where it is painfully clear that the authoress is the heroine and the hero is the Man Of Her Dreams.

PD James is something again; she, too, becomes increasingly in love with her detective, but she is herself such a cold fish that Dalgliesh remains as repulsive as 'ere he was.

UNFORGIVABLE SIN #2: THINKING YOU ARE BETTER THAN YOUR GENRE.  This is P.D.James.  She critiques Christie as simplistic and fantastic, yet, in EVERY NOVEL I HAVE EVER READ BY HER (I can't say I've read that many, but I think I've made it thru around 10) SHE ALWAYS RESORTS TO A MURDERER"S CONFESSION.  In at least 3 cases taht I recall off-hand, for some unknown reason, the MURDERER TAPED (literally, on audiocassettes) the confession AND SENT IT TO DALGLIESH POSTHUMOUSLY.  SERIOUSLY??!!! That in itself is unforgivable; yet even worse is the fact that she criticizes Christie as simplistic and contrived.  AC's crimes at least can be solved without forcing a murderer's posthumous confession.  At the end of a PDJ novel, I find that I hate all the characters.  Each dying is almost a relief.  I am left with the feeling, as AC puts it, that they are all "nasty people".  I always feel soiled after reading a PDJ novel.  The people are so awful, all of them, including ADJ.  He is slightly reminiscient of Javert; he is truly an awful human being, so much so that he must be a poet to somehow make him human.  Yet he is not.  He is conscienceless, he is cruel to the victims to get information, and yet, unlike Poirot's cruelties, PDJ takes no issue with this.  I hate the fact that he marries a woman who has no connection with his life and is upper-class.  PDJ has her paper-cut-out racial/class issue characters, but they are not "people".  Whereas in an AC, I find I really like all of the characters; caricatures though they may be, they are human enough to breathe and live and be uncertain in nature.  Death on the Nile is one like this.  I almost dislike reading it, because I find I really like almost all of the characters.  While I like Lynette, I still can, like Jackie, hate her; and in Jackie, I see the true tragedy, as does AC, of loving not wisely but too well.  AC has the art, which I can find nowhere else, of having us come to the end of the novel LIKING the characters, yet being totally uncertain as to whether they are murderers.  The suspense comes from us not wanting to sacrifice the characters we have grown to love, while still unwillingly seeing that they are capable of murder.  AC may be xenophobic and racist and classist and sexist, but her characters still breathe.

Could it be
That you fear to die?
Will the world remember you
When you fall?
Could it be your death
Means nothing at all?
Is your life
just one
poor lie?

(well, yes.  Rich boy plotting a revolution, what did you expect?  You couldn't trick The People into rising,even when you take advantage of another man's death to fan their anger.  Grr. You are Javert, but without the fun.)

But Reg/Enjolras, don't worry, The Watch Is Recruiting Good (if dead) men!
And they lift them up...feet up...feet up....

Javert: "One more day to revolution
We will nip it in the bud
I will join these little schoolboys
They will wet themselves with blood!"

contestants: 
Rent.  About a lot of people dying from HIV.
Chicago. Murderesses who want fame.
Les Mis. French revolution.

Rent--loses the cynicism award.  By an uncountable number of points.  One of the least cynical ones I've come across, it's all a reaffirmation of life, happiness, etc, despite the bleak plot definition.  Less dark than Wicked, which is saying something.

Chicago--pretty damn cynical, but also inaccurate; characterizes all women as stupid and fully sexually motivated; despite uber-cynicism about life, fame, justice, it actually is rather idealistic about love, e.g., cell block tango.  I wouldn't murder someone for love, even if he "had it coming".  Don't think I'd care enough....now, if all the women were like the lawyer, this might really be in the running.

Les Mis--THE WINNER. The heartbreaking moment where the idealistic students realize that they all will die in vain, that, as Pratchett puts it, they had put their faith in and done all this for The People, who don't exist.  "As soon as you see people as something to measure, they don't measure up".  It is, in essence, a play about losing faith; the students lose their faith in Truth, Justice, Freedom (and a hard-boiled egg) but STILL have to die for it.  Javert loses his faith in Justice (and his badge), but having no silver cigar case to keep him stable, realizes his life has been dedicated to a false principle; he cannot survive the loss of his anchor and the justification for his deep anger.  Cosette dies for a love she realizes can never be, but STILL dies for it.  Gavroche never grows up and dies for a war that wasn't worth fighting.  (Cosette being alive at the end causes the whole audience to lose faith in the point of existence).

And in the end, nothing has changed.  All those deaths, all those sacrifices, and no change.  I see why Pratchett wrote Night Watch; it somehow gives a "perfect moment" that Les Mis never does.

Why is it, when people address a letter to "dear _" and sign it "sincerely", they are not being sincere and the object of the letter is undoubtedly not "dear"? 

Who would ever choose Cosette over Eponine???
I think Javert and Eponine should have got together.  Pity they both die in totally random and unnecessary ways.
I keep seeing Javert as Sherlock Holmes.
Anyway Maurius and Cosette deserve each other for sheer blandness.

At last, I know: I am a true CS major.  I just spent two days, several Matlab scripts, adventures in JSwing, awt, multithreading, and system calls...all to automate a process which, in manual labour, probably would have taken only 3 hours or so.  Not only that, but I am proud of it.  Just think...even if not in reality (as i haven't beaten the constant) asymptotically, I've saved time (wrt big-O)!!

And that is the heart and soul and centre of CS--spending way too much time and work to--theoretically at least--save both.

I suppose, as I am planning to do a PhD in the subject, it was a good time to figure out that I actually am a real CS major.

I just spent the LAST 3 HOURS manually looking thru logs thinking i had a virus and trying to figure out how to repair from it.  A mysterious process with a SPACE in front came up under task manager: " wowexec.exe".  As everyone knows, "underscore/ space in front of process name"<=>"virus".
AAah. 
Turns out that there is a virus of that name (which is what confused me)--specifically, it is "_wowexec.exe".  But " wowexec.exe" is, strangely, a real process to run 16-bit apps.  WTF?????
This is all Collegeboard's fault.  who has 16-bit applications, anyway? thanks gres.

Chemical worker's song:
"And it's go, boys, go.
they'll time your every breath.
and every day you're in this place
you're two days nearer death
but you go...."

Into the woods,
It's time to go,
You hate to leave,
You have to, though.
Into the woods-
It's time, and so
You must begin your journey.

You think, what do you want?
You think, make a decision.
Why not stay and be taught?
You think, well, it's a thought,
What would be your response?
And then what if they knew
Who you were when you know
That you're not what they think
That you are?

And then what if you are
What a school would envision?
Although how can you know
Who you are till you know
What you want, which you don't?
So then which do you pick:
Where you're safe, out of sight,
And yourself, but where everything's wrong?
Or where everything's right
And you know that you'll never belong?

And whichever you pick,
Do it quick,
'Cause you're starting to stick
 And get stuck in this difficult place

It's your first big decision,
The choice isn't easy to make.
To arrive in the fall
Is exciting and all-
Once you're there, though, it'd be scary.
And it's fun to deceive
When you know you can leave,
But you have to be wary.
There's a lot that's at stake,
But you've stalled long enough,
'Cause you're still staying stuck
In these thoughts and missteps...

Better go get a job...
And avoid the collision.
Even if it's just fair ,
You'll be better of there
Where there's nothing to choose,
So there's nothing to lose.
But you're still in the blues

 So not knowing what's true
And without any guide,
What you're decision's been...
 It's been not to decide.

But now you must pick,
Do it quick,
'Cause you're starting to stick
 And get stuck in this difficult place

You think, what do you want?
You think, make a decision.
Why not stay and be taught?
You think, well, it's a thought,
But it's just too intense...
And then what if they knew
Who you were when you know
That you're not what they think
That you are?