TNTM: HP and the 1/2 Blood

io9 has a review which sums up a lot of my feelings for HP6 quite well.  It seemed more of a “Here’s what happened while you were waiting for the seventh (and eighth) movies” feel about it.  Things seemed rushed.

I didn’t really feel the need for the Dumbledore funeral, as the ending dragged a bit on its own.  I suppose it could have been done in place of the glowing wands or something.  But one commenter (gasp! a commenter!) raised a good point that had been nagging me:  Draco got the Death Eaters into Hogwarts so Bellatrix could break some windows?  Lame.  I suppose the director wants to hold out on battles until movie eight?  Cheated.

Snape’s struggle was far too underscored, and that was my main problem.  “I am the Half-Blood Prince,” he says at the end of the movie.  Who?  Who’s that?  Oh, the guy with the potion book, right.

I’m not the greatest fan of including every speck of prose from a book, but I felt this one chopped out weird bits and left out other bits.  Three hour movies are not my thing, really, but the snogging focus was a little heavy considering the weight of the other things happening in the wizard world.  It felt a bit like that in the book as well – which I suppose captures the age of the characters well.  At that age, it is the end of the world if a loved one doesn’t love you back.  But, still, there’s good action to be seen.  And the snogging doesn’t come off as romantic or sweet – it comes off as kids playing around.  I know they aren’t the youngest of folks, really, but still.

Ah well.  It was alright.  Sam and I disagree on the movies anyway, but I think she felt this one lackluster as well.  Her favorites are the first two and mine is number 3 – her least favorite.  Change is hard

 

DEAR Time: Percy Jackson and the Last Olympian

Ah, Percy Jackson.  That adventurous fellow.  His adventures are (currently) done.  Rick Riordan has called it the end of the first Camp Half-Blood series, so there will no doubt be more.  Will they have Percy as the main character?  I actually hope not.  I like the idea of exploring some new campers and that kind of thing.  Percy has had his arc completed.  I liked it.

“The Last Olympian” was much better than “Battle for the Labyrinth.”  Labyrinth seemed very trite, very “I’ve read this book before” compared to the past books.  ”Olympian” had a lot of action and fun to it.  Predictable in several ways, but also hard to guess the exact outcome.  I spent much of the book expecting Annabeth to turn evil at the end, but I did guess Silena’s secret fairly early on.  Of course, I am not the target demographic and I have become somewhat skilled at guessing how books will turn out.  Harry Potter?  Called it.  The City of Ember?  Swish.  Books my age?  Don’t read ‘em very often.

Because despite the predictability of some plot points and character actions, I have nice surprises thrown my way by the younger books.  The creative process flows faster in them, amazing things that adults might think silly happen and end up seeming very cool.

Percy Jackson is an amazing series overall from the perspective of an educator.  There’s lots of parallels to Greek myths and stories and it’s an entertaining way for kids to learn about ancient Greek mythology.  Which is neat to me because I’m a bit of a myth-nerd.

The conflict is pretty action packed in Olympian.  I didn’t find the “choice” Percy had to make all that difficult from an outside perspective, but it was fun to read.  I especially enjoyed the inclusion of Hestia, Goddess of the Hearth who played an important, if underscored, role in the proceedings.

It was a good conclusion to a good series.  I liked it.

 

Questionable Naming

Well, Zachary has this awful diaper rash.  Somewhat disgusting.  We are doing our best to solve the problem – and we are for certain moving to cloth diapers.  We want to get the all-in-one, and it would be a treat if they were the adjustable (one size) variety.  The past few days have found me scouring reviews and personal parenting blogs for advice.

Ah, “Parenting.”  Have I mentioned my ire for this publication?  A rudimentary scan of this periodical brings up its delight-less incorrect moniker.  The magazine should be named “Mothering.”  Upon further investigation, one might change this to “Mothering without Dad’s help because he’s a worthless layabout and probably doesn’t care about the children, also, you are a female Jesus.”  I suppose the masthead would be too unweildly.  Still, it’s a nightmare.

Case in point:  The Forums.  I am no stranger to the world of Online BBS Battle.  Youthful and brash,I was even guilty of upscaling arguments into “that’s what the Nazis did” territory.  My time in the trenches has made me wary of re-entering that world, so I mainly lurk.  Signing up for every forum I want to comment on takes too much time anyway – I’ve got this baby to take care of.

The Forums have a “Dad to Dad” forum, seemingly intended for Dad’s to talk to Dad’s.  What the staff of “Parenting” don’t seem to understand is that the magazine should probably pull Dad’s into this world.  It certainly doesn’t.  The DtD forum is mostly moms wondering why the Dads don’t seem to be around.  Maybe they are busy fixing grease traps and shaving themselves, whatever these men do.  It all adds up to a big “fail” for the magazine.

Irritating behavior from a magazine aside, it irks me that the “stay at home dad” is still looked on as weird by certain folk.  There’s no way to really know who they are, but they are out there.  Watching.  Judging.  Ignoring their children.

Ah well.

 

Recycling

The excitement at Casa de Abello is over our new recycling bin. It is, in actuality, a laundry hamper. But the bags are removable and there are three of them. We no longer will be throwing everything into one bin for later sorting. The nicety also follows that we can take one load at a time for right now. Which is pretty great when you have to drive your own recycling around town.

In addition, we have tomatoes on our front plants. Something I am quite excited about. We lost one fruit already to bugs, but there has been a spraying. Are we proud? No. But we will have tomatoes.

It continues very hot, which I am not too thrilled on. But that’s how it rolls here in OK.

 

We Now Return To Our Irregularly Scheduled Programming

Life has picked up. Zachary and I are back in OK after our sweet, sweet, excursion to MI. Camp was a lot of fun and reminded me of life at its best. OK is hot. So that’s that.

Life! Sam has tended the garden well – she is the superior gardener of the family – and we shall soon reap benefits. I missed the beans and peas by being at camp, which is sad, but I shall be about to have zuchini and squash, corn, tomatoes, peppers, and peanuts! Ah, my peanut plant is growing well. I planted three, but one is doing well as can be. I don’t know when to dig the peanuts up, though. So the Internet calls later.

Sam is looking for jobs. She has applied in the UP (awesome!) and Maine (could be awesome) and our dreams of a quick move home to MI are fading. Which could be a good thing. I rather fancy the idea of life in Maine, dependent on where we end up. It seems a smaller state width wise, so I wonder what a journey to the ocean is like when you live on the southwest area. I don’t know Maine. All I think of are dudes in waterproof overalls thrusting lobster into sacks and “The Shipping News.”

All this talk of gardening and living on a farm (our goal) has be excited to do a few extreme DIY projects. I have a little dream of making my Quest pizza (Rose Levy Berenbaum Rules!) with as much homemade material as possible. The pizza in question involves beer in the crust, so you can see how far such a thing could be extrapolated. A dream indeed, of sauce made from homegrown tomatoes, crust from homemade beer, mozzarella constructed from a cow I milk myself, perhaps even flour and barley grown at home. It shan’t be easy, but it certainly sounds amazing to me.

I am almost done with my school term. All that remains is a paper and a test I must complete. And that will be that until Augustish.

My main focus in the coming weeks is “The Hound of the Baskervilles” at the Town and Gown. So much must be done! Directing a play is a new endeavor for me, so I am excited to learn.

And on the fiction front, I am hard at work on “Attack of the Space Pirates.” Perhaps I will build a buffer so I can update the blog with it. Published on the Internet? Perhaps so.

Also: For those who need to know (you know who you are, illustrious clientele) my job title is no longer “Adventurer-for-Hire.” Those mercenary-styled cavaliers have grown too large in number with their shoot first, ask questions never attitudes. For your Grail Quest needs, I suggest you go with someone possessing more panache. Me. Man of Action. I plan. I watch. I act. Don’t be fooled by cut-rate adventurers who use any excuse to start a knife fight! Get a Man of Action and get the job done right!

 

“UP”

Hey, so, Pixar is gold.  We all knew it.  Last night, Sam and I were going to see “Star Trek,” which I seriously want to see again on the big screen, and we couldn’t so we saw “Up.”  I wasn’t sure if I wanted to.  Pixar movies amaze me.  They take fairly simple (yet awesome) premises, premises I wouldn’t think would be rounded out, and make amazing epic stories from them.  “Up” is great.

It has been a long time since a movie connected with me on such an emotional level like “Up” did.  The ups and downs are way up and way down.  It’s the best sort of kid’s movie – unafraid to show certain things that can happen to people.  Carl (the old guy) really has a solid life with a woman he loves, and they still show the downs of this time with her.  Ellie she’s called.

And Ellie is a behind the scenes hero here.  Carl would do none of this if not for Ellie.  Her book of “Adventure” is very fun – though I had it’s little secret figured out far before it’s revealed.

Anyway, I loved it.  Pixar delivers once more.  Now if I can only get them to buy my “Whales vs. Squids” movie.

 

The Voyage Home

As some may know, I’m heading to Michigan for a few weeks in a couple weeks.  My main items will be helping run CITs at camp and going up north with my mother’s family.  Into this mix, I also must try to visit Sam’s family, have to hang out with Chris at least once, and do my laundry.  It’s very dicey.

We leave possibly next Friday, but I am unsure.  Sam (who is coming up with me for the drive) thinks we should swing by Nana and Papa’s, which adds three hours to a fifteen hour journey.  While I am not opposed, in principle, the practicalness of it is a bit troublesome.  Also, upon Michigan arrival, do we go to my parents’ house?  Or Sam’s?  I am supposed to be at camp Tuesday morning to give a talk on DLP, which shortens much of the “visit time.”  Plus, there’s all this gasoline to pay for.

Add to this the fact Zachary is getting his vaccines that Friday, and we have a complex situation.  What is to be done?  I don’t know, but we’ll figure something out.

 

Ocarina of Time

Today I finished playing Ocarina of Time on the Wii Virtual Console. We don’t have a “classic controller” but the GameCube control was more than apt. This is still an excellent game. The replay value is amazing, which I think is a good criteria.

The cons of the game are pretty minimal. I tend to ignore things like dated graphics and sound – they get the job done here so they don’t distract. Controls are good. The challenge is good. I’ve played through maybe twice before, and I still died twice (stupid Shadow Link).

I love the openness of the gameplay. Once you finish the first level – the Deku Tree – you get a huge area to explore and play in. You have missions to complete, new weapons to unlock, money to collect – wait. That sounds like Grand Theft Auto. Yes, I’m comparing the two. Think on it. One is a far more massive game, but there’s a similarity. There is, I tell you!

What I love about OoT: The story. It’s fairly good. Zelda nerds place it first in the Zelda timeline for the games. I love the weapons – to hookshot around Kakariko village is very fun. The sidequests. Not all are amazing, but they’re all a nice distraction from the main game. The game itself. Is fun. Some games I’ve replayed – started to – and quit because playing them seemed like work. The sequel, Majora’s Mask, falls into that category for me. Twilight Princess somewhat does as well, but only as I’ve not had a long period between plays.

One little thing I really love about this (and most Zeldas) is the save function. Especially with this game. From the start menu, you press B. You press A. You’re saved. Considered the limit curve to infinity amount of times you go into the start menu, you save more times on accident than any other reason. It just happens. I find special save points obnoxious. While you don’t end up “exactly” where you saved, it’s nice to save anywhere.

Still, I’d love to be able to save anywhere and start anywhere. Even as a battle begins.

Anyway. That’s my love letter to one of the best video games I’ve ever played. Love it.

 

It’s all over!

Well, people have been spamming me since I mentioned a certain cable company, so I won’t do that anymore.

I was thinking today about the phrase “That’s not funny” and how it needs some sort of companion.  In typical conversation, I find it to be used to show offense to often hilarious comments.  When used to denote something that really isn’t funny – a bad joke impossible to laugh at ironically, or The Great Gatsby – people get annoyed.  “No, no,” I might add.  “It just is devoid of humor.  I’m not offended.”  What can one say?

Although, sometimes people make “jokes” that are what I would describe as “anti-funny.”  This means I am offended that anyone would find this humorous.  Like when people call it “Taco Hell.”  We get it!  It ryhmes!  Why do you want to go there if you are calling it that?  Not really the point.

The Point:  What do you way when something isn’t funny?  I feel cruel telling the person “That’s stupid.”  I can’t stand the awkward silence of everyone standing around not laughing.  “Nice try” won’t work either.  I don’t want to encourage the poor person.

Some people are okay with it.  I worked with a very funny guy who nevertheless had some clunkers.  He had an odds theory; at least one out ten of his jokes would be funny.  So he’d just go until he hit one.  By being told what wasn’t funny, I feel he managed to work it down to one out of five.  That’s good odds for casual conversation.

There is something that speaks about our society when we are often too polite to tell that one person out of a hundred they aren’t funny.  You’ve met them.  The person with no delivery sense of humor.  They laugh and they know what is funny when they hear it, but they are incapable of crafting their own hilarious joke.  Even worse are the poor people with no humor at all.  Oh, I mourn for them.  They laugh when everyone else does because they think they’re supposed to.  Those poor kids who never made the connections that fart noises = comedy gold.

Mathematically, if the decibel level of a fart is greater than x, x being the snootiness of the group you’re with, then the gold you’re trying to find is expressed as Fx=G.  That’s math!

EDIT!!!

This was actually a post about the season finale of Grey’s Anatomy and how little I cared.  I think me forgetting to mention that illustrates my point.

 

Internet Blues

I’ve got ‘em.  You know I do.  This is after reading the PC World article.  What fun.  Sam and I have talked a lot about dropping TV and having only Internet.  We get our movies through NetFlix, and I’ve started Hulu-ing.  Of course, I don’t actively watch TV that much anymore.  I like to catch the Daily Show, but now that Scrubs is over I don’t have any programs I feel I must see.  I can catch most of the Daily Show online.  Same with South Park.

Not that it matters, since the Internet is freaking expensive no matter what.  I’ve been checking into DSL and all that bidness, and I’m not very happy with my options.  I have enough problems with Sudden Link.  Most of them are summed up in this Penny Arcade comic.  We are paying for this garbage.  The Irony is felt especially in the Sudden Link commercials featuring the “gunk.”  If SL is so speedy, why am I not viewing my Netflix movies at full resolution?  I have seen the miracle of instant viewing in high-def in other places.

As far as TV, what stinketh most is there are very few options.  Satellite?  Bah.  The ISP of satellite smells.  Antenna?  Do they still make those?  So, we’re somewhat mired in the mediocrity of modern cable.  Which is asinine in many ways.  Of the several channels we get, we watch around ten.  If only we could pay for ten.  I know that’s something that would have to be solved outside the cable company, since it’s the providers of the channels to the cable folk, but it would be nice.

Armed with decent laptops, I honestly think Sam and I could live a life without TV or Internet being paid for by us.  There’s the library we can frequent, as well as a bevy of coffee shops.  Although, I have been to several that charge one for Wi-Fi use.  Interent seems the more necessary, since it solves the need for TV.  So, if I could find a nice, inexpensive ISP in Stillwater, I would work hard to grab a hold of that.  But I doubt it will happen.